George Barris is one of the best-known designers of custom cars in the world. With some justification, he styles himself King of the Kustomizers.
George and his brother Sam were born in Chicago in the 1920s. Due to the deaths of their parents, they moved to Roseville, California as children to live with relatives. Both were good students, interested in drama, music, and design. George was fascinated with model aircraft, and pursed the hobby seriously in his teenage years, winning competitions for his models.
The brothers worked at a restaurant owned by their family, and one day were given a 1925 Buick for their help. Although it was not in good shape, they swiftly restored it to running condition, and began to experiment with changing its appearance. This became the first Barris Brothers custom car. They sold it at a profit to buy another project vehicle, and their career was born. Before George had graduated from high school, demand for their work was growing, and they had created a club for owners of custom vehicles, called the Kustoms Car Club. This was the first use of the spelling "kustom," which would become associated with Barris.
Sam entered the Navy during World War II, while George moved to Los Angeles. Sam joined him there after being discharged. The two built their "kustom" designs for private buyers, and George also built and raced his own cars briefly. These activities brought them to the attention of the movie industry, and they were soon asked to create cars both for personal use by the studio executives and stars and as props for films, their first being used in 1958's 'High School Confidential'. They also made the acquaintance of Robert E. Petersen, founder of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines and, much later, of the Petersen Auto Museum. His publications and car shows further publicized the Barris style, George himself writing how-to articles for would be customizers.
In 1951, Sam had customized a new Mercury coupe for himself, and a customer who saw it ordered a similar car. This vehicle, known as the Hirohata Merc for its owner, was shown at the 1952 Motorama auto show and was so popular it overshadowed the best work of Detroit's top designers, on display at the major manufacturer's exhibits. It also established the early '50s Mercury as possibly the classic base for custom car design, a status it retains today. In addition, he built Ala Kart, a '29 Ford Model A roadster pickup; after taking two AMBR (America's Most Beautiful Roadster) wins in a row, she made numerous film and television appearances, usually in the background of diner scenes, and is among Barris' best-known projects.[1]
Sam decided to leave the business in the '50s, but George had married and he credited his wife Shirley with major assistance in promoting the company, which eventually became Barris Kustom Industries. It began to license its designs to model car manufacturers such as Aurora, Revell, MPC and AMT, which spread the Barris name into every hobby, department, and discount store in the country and also into the minds of millions of eager model builders.
In the early 1960s, Barris, along with other well-known customizers (Gene Winfield, Dean Jeffries and the Alexander Brothers) reworked production cars for Ford's "Custom Car Caravan" and "Lincoln/Mercury's Caravan of Stars". The traveling exhibits were designed to appeal to younger car buyers, both current and future.[2]
Barris is the subject of the title story in author Tom Wolfe's first collection of essays "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby."
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According to Barris, some of his first film work consisted of making soft aluminum fenders for a Ford police car that crashes into the rear of a Mercedes Benz convertible driven by Cary Grant's character in North by Northwest. The idea was to give the collision a comedic quality while also preventing serious damage to the expensive Mercedes. He also built and supplied cars for the 1958 film High School Confidential and loaned some of his customs for the "future" scenes in the 1960 film adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. Other Barris-built film cars included a modifed Dodge Charger for Thunder Alley, a Plymouth Barracuda for Fireball 500, the futuristic Supervan for a film of the same name, a gadget-filled Mercury station wagon for The Silencers, and a sinister rework of a Lincoln Continental Mark III for The Car.[3]
The 1960s would see the firm become heavily involved in vehicle design for television production. At the beginning of the decade, Barris, who loved extravagant design whether his or someone else's, had purchased the Lincoln Futura, a concept car of the mid-'50s which had been built by Ghia of Italy. It remained in his collection for several years, until he was rather unexpectedly asked by ABC Television to create a signature vehicle for their new Batman television series. Time was very short as filming would begin in a few weeks, and creation of a new design from scratch was scarcely possible. Instead, he remembered the Futura, which had been designed by the original Lincoln stylists to resemble a shark, with a menacing, aggressive front and high tailfins. Barris decided it was a perfect base on which to create the Batmobile. Barris hired custom builder Gene Cushenberry To actually modify the car and in three weeks the car was ready and the show was immediately a hit, the car becoming one of the most recognizable icons of the 1960s and possibly Barris' most famous work.
Other television cars built by Barris Kustom Industries include the Munster coach and casket turned dragster (the Drag-U-La) for The Munsters (some say both were designed by Tom Daniels while working for Barris), an Oldsmobile Toronado turned into a roadster used in the first season of Mannix, a 1921 Oldsmobile touring car turned into a truck for The Beverly Hillbillies, the fictional "1928 Porter" for the NBC comedy My Mother the Car, Updated KITT's for later seasons of Knight Rider[4] and replicas of 1914 Stutz Bearcats for Bearcats!.[5]
Barris designs have also been featured in commercials and as corporate promotional vehicles including a guitar-shaped car with a complete sound system for Vox amplifiers and a drivable roadster in the shape of a V-8 juice can. He also has built many famous novelty vehicles for such famous celebrities ranging from a golf carts for Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Ann-Margret, Glen Campbell and Elton John; and twenty-five modified Austin Mini Mokes for a record company contest involving the Beach Boys. He would also modify (to varying degrees, from new paint and minor custom work to full customs) cars for Hollywood stars and others, some examples include a Cadillac limousine for Elvis Presley; custom Pontiac station wagons for John Wayne, a set of modified "his & hers" 1966 Ford Mustang convertibles for Sonny and Cher, working with American Motors in 1969, he modified an AMX coupe into the AMX-400 show car which was later used in a 1972 episode of the TV mystery series Banacek, and a Cadillac El Dorado turned into a station wagon for Dean Martin.[6] More recently, Barris also designed 2 custom Cadillac hearses for episodes of the cable television series Monster Garage.
Barris' company often builds replicas of non-Barris designed vehicles from other TV series, including The Monkees (Monkeemobile), Starsky and Hutch (Ford Torino), Power Rangers (Rad-Bug, Turbo Vehicles, and SPD Cars), and Knight Rider (KITT). Barris Kustom Industries has sold some of these cars at auction.
Barris still works out of his shop, assisted by his son and daughter. The firm remains busy with 'kustom' creation, charitable functions, and even a Barris clothing line. The founder himself is still in the public eye, receiving awards, appearing at auto-related events, and recently being featured on ABC TV's popular show Extreme Makeover.
   | Restoration of the Barris Supervan - The George Barris Super Van at The Guild of Automotive Restorers |
| | Barris interview from 2004 - Exclusive: George Barris Interview |
| | CNN profile from 2001 - CNN.com - Entertainment - George Barris, the King of Kustom Kars - January 9, 2001 |
| | The Official Barris Blog - Hot Rod Road Show |
| | LA Times article about Cease and Desist from May 07 - Star cars set off alarms - Los Angeles Times |
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