Kargoyle: The hearse from George Barris’ workshop

Back in the days when you couldn’t draw anything on a computer, Drag-U-La probably surprised thousands of viewers of The Munsters series. But no matter how iconic the grobo-dragster is, it seems to me that the much less well-known Cargoyle is a much more attractive car for today’s article. After all, Drag-U-La is a comedy sitcom machine, while Kargoyle is a real hearse.

Both of the aforementioned cars were built in the workshop of George Barris, an extremely controversial figure in the American custom scene. On the one hand, no one in their right mind would deny Barris’s skill, and the number of photographs that George took at various exhibitions perpetuated many cars that did not live up to the 21st century. On the other hand, Comrade Barris built most of the customizations to order for films and TV series, as a result of which they look at least controversial. It’s clear that people have different tastes, and some modern purists make a face even at the sight of cars like This Shoe. But even I, a man who loves everything golden, tasteless, and octogenarian, am not ready to defend a substantial part of George Barris’ work.

It’s worth saying here that seeing a hearse on our roads is almost like meeting a snowman. It just so happened that since the days of the USSR, 200 loads have been delivered by the most common vans, trucks and trucks. The special vehicles built in the Soviet Union could be counted on one hand, but they were mainly used to take prominent party members to the hospital – they were rather not hearses, but luxury ambulances. Due to their rarity, these cars were given names like those very American custom cars – and most often such cars were called Black Doctors.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation did not change, mainly because no one built new hearses, and the services of old and imported cars cost so much money that no one really used them. As a result, the dead are still being transported in ordinary trucks, quietly and unnoticeably. But, to be honest, meeting with a real hearse in the vastness of the post-Soviet space leaves much more impressions from this approach to business. A couple of years ago, I happened to miss just such a car at night in the suburbs at a lonely traffic light – of course, I did not know and could not know whether the car was working for its intended purpose or was retired in someone’s private collection, but anyway, a long black silhouette of a very specific shape floated by… interesting impressions.

In general, it is the hearse that is the Cargoyle – or rather the Cadillac of 1967, modified by the very famous Miller-Meteor atelier. The subsequent history of the car is very murky: most of George’s customizations can be traced very easily, because they somehow appeared in films or TV series. However, Kargoyle is a very unusual exception. On Barris’ own website (which lost many pages after his death), it was stated that the Cargoyle was a project by his son Brett, built for a 1980 film called Terror On Wheels.

The problem is that, apparently, such a film has never existed: there is not a single frame from this masterpiece on the entire Internet, and the name is unknown in any database. A few years ago, when the Cargula was put up for auction, they provided slightly different information: they say, the 1980 film for which the car was built was called Gargoyles. But there has never been a movie with that name either! Therefore, it is extremely difficult to say exactly how long Kargulya worked by profession when she was acquired by George Barris, and who exactly from his workshop was involved in this project.

The first photo of the heroine of the article with the exact date is dated back to the two thousandth year, and, apparently, by that time George had decided to either rebuild or restore the Cargula. It is unclear whether this was due to some third film that never took place, or whether Barris took up the car solely out of love for cars. It is not known exactly how long the work on the Cargoyle lasted, but in 2003 it was noticed at the 54th National Roadster Show, and the hearse was, in fact, in the very form in which it is to this day, including the purple body color and custom-made discs a la cobweb from Colorado Customs.

Airbrushing and small details were added to the Cargula, apparently, in 2005. It seems like it was made specifically for the second-rate TV show The Girls Next Door, but the car appeared on TV screens only in 2006, while back in 2005 Kargoyle took part in an attempt to set a record for the length of a hearse train. Maybe the series was shot in 2005, or maybe the car was ready long before filming. And there is also the possibility that Barris modified Cadillac just like that, without making an attempt to cram the Cargoyle onto the screens.

Anyway, the custom hearse still starred in the TV show – as befits a Barris workshop car. And it is in the Halloween series called Girls Will Be Ghouls. As you can see from the damn creative title, there is nothing interesting either in this series or in the entire TV show as a whole, and there is only one reason to watch a couple of frames from the aforementioned episode.: this is almost the only video showing the operation of the hydraulic suspension of the Cargoyle.

However, I would venture to assume that participation in the TV show did somehow affect the popularity of the hearse, as after 2006, the Cargoyle began to appear briefly… literally everywhere. Apart from various auto shows, the car appeared on at least one zombie mob, and even appeared on video several more times: The Cargoyle repeatedly partially fits into the frame in the debut episode of Tim Timebomb’s Rock’n’roll Theater Internet series, as well as appears in front of the viewer in all its glory for a few seconds in a bi-movie Bitch Slap and takes away one of the heroes.

However, these were all small things – the real fame suddenly came to Kargulya in 2015. Shortly before the death of George Barris, a purple custom hearse suddenly decided to perpetuate Rockstar Games, and now every year on Halloween, GTA Online players can purchase an Albany Lurcher car, which is not reliably accurate, but nevertheless a very recognizable copy of the heroine of this article.

And after Comrade Barris left our mortal world, the notorious Mötley Crüe glamers chose the Cargoyle as their promotional car. Before the last concerts of their final tour, titled All Bad Things Must Come To An End, Barris’ hearse literally flooded the band’s Twitter and Instagram. So Mötley Crüe fans will surely remember the Cargoyle – after all, this car has recently visited almost all places directly related to the band’s history, and each stop was accompanied by a photo.

And, in general, this is the whole well-known history of this hearse – in 2018 it was auctioned off into private hands, and since then, until 2020, Kargulya has not appeared in public.Who knows, maybe the new owner is preparing something big… or maybe he locked the car in the garage and blew the dust off it. Anyway, at the moment the car has gone into the shadows, and I just have to tell you a little about the technical details of this hearse.

So, the first thing that catches your eye is, of course, the radical chop-top. They cut down as much as 15 centimeters from the roof and put it at an angle, which gave the Cargoyle a damn interesting and peculiar appearance. The rear doors are latticed (after all, if a passenger falls out, you won’t have to walk far behind the hearse). As already briefly mentioned, the low body fit is due to the hydraulic suspension – among other things, this car is also a lowrider. Under the hood is a seven-liter Cadillac factory engine, and fuel and air are supplied using a supercharger and six carburettors… Oh, no, it’s not. As you can see in the photo, the whole thing is falsely suspended above a standard engine that is attached to an automatic transmission. Unfortunately, nothing is known about brakes at all. There is a definite possibility that the brakes on the Cargula are factory-made, and you won’t be able to accelerate on it very much. Although at least one photo on George Barris’ website seems to have captured a hearse standing on the drag strip in Bakersfield – maybe one day a supercharger was connected to the engine? One way or another, it is not possible to find out the speed of the Cargoyle, the time, and whether she performed at all. However, everything can still change – who knows what the new owner will do with the car? Maybe by next Halloween, this purple Cadillac will regularly tear up rivals in quarter-mile races.

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