George Barris

Custom car designer George Barris was interviewed for three hours in North Hollywood, CA. Barris talked about his early years customizing his own cars as a teenager and described his participation in the street racing youth culture of the late 1940s in Los Angeles.  He discussed the craze in low budget Hollywood films to depict this culture thus leading to his work in film and television.  Barris described in great detail the custom cars from various television series for which he is best known, including the “Batmobile” from Batman, the “Munster Koach” and “Drag-u-la” from The Munsters, the family car from The Beverly Hillbillies, the red with white-stripe Ford Torino from Starsky and Hutch, the “General Lee” from The Dukes of Hazard, and K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. He also talked about his contributions to such feature films as Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and The Flintstones.  Additionally, Barris discussed his role as a pioneer of custom designing cars and talked about his extensive celebrity clientele that included Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Redd Foxx, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. The interview was conducted by Karen Herman on April 21, 2004.