What Happened When ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ Fans Made Their Own General Lee Car … and Tried to Jump It?
Attendees of the Somernites Cruise car show in Somerset, Kentucky, got a thrill on Saturday, June 28, as a replica of the “General Lee” car from the 1980s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard soared 150 feet through the air and over a fountain.
With stunt driver Raymond Kohn in the driver’s seat — and Dukes of Hazzard actors John Schneider and Byron Cherry in attendance — the car zoomed down a Somerset street at 50 miles per hour, hit a ramp, and went airborne. The car then crossed a blue spray of water from the Somerset Fountain’s namesake landmark and hit the pavement on the other side with a crunch before hitting a barricade on the side of the road.
A videographer near the landing zone had to run behind a barricade to avoid getting hit by the car, as ABC 7 Chicago footage shows, but everyone walked away from the stunt safe and sound.
“It’s done,” Keith Floyd, executive director of Somernites Cruise, said after the stunt, per the Commonwealth Journal. “Praise the Lord, everybody’s safe. [Kohn] is doing great. I’m just so high [with excitement] right now.”
And it’s a good thing that the replica car took damage, Kohn told the newspaper: “When it looks rough to you guys, it’s easier on me. When it looks nice and clean for you guys, then it’s harder on me.”
Turns out, Saturday’s stunt was Kohn’s 30th “General Lee” jump and his 31st stunt jump, and he once jumped a car 217 feet after hitting the ramp at 72 miles per hour.
The Dukes of Hazzard, which aired on CBS from 1979 to 1985, starred Schneider and Tom Wopatas the moonshining cousins Bo and Luke Duke, who antagonize city slickers and local cops while palling around in the “General Lee,” their customized Dodge Charger stock car.
In recent years, the show has come under scrutiny for its use of the “General Lee” name and the Confederate flag, both symbols of a slavery-era U.S. South. After an anti-Black church shooting in Charleston, West Virginia, in 2015, Warner Bros. stopped licensing General Lee cars bearing the Confederate flag design and TV Land stopped airing reruns of the show. The replica Kohn drove Saturday’s stunt, however, did feature the Confederate flag design.
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