George Barris

George Barris (11/20/1925 – 11/5/2015) was a custom car builder originally from Chicago, Illinois, USA. Along with his brother Sam Barris, George was at the origin of the lead sled style. One of the Barris brothers’ cars, the Hirohata Merc, remains one of the most famous representatives of this style even after more than seventy years.

After Sam Barris retired from working on cars in 1960, George Barris and the workshop under his leadership became famous as a garage where they create cars for Hollywood films and stars. Over the decades, George has built dozens of cars, including truly world-famous cars such as the first Batmobile from the 60s TV series, the GMC Vandura of the A-Team and the updated KITT for the later seasons of the Knight of the Roads series.

Nevertheless, the main merit of George Barris is not his cars, but the popularization of custom culture in general. Back in the 1940s, George bought a camera and began filming his cars. In the beginning, the photos were taken with the aim of promoting their own custom car business, but the pictures quickly became tools for other customizers, both beginners and veterans of the custom scene passing on the experience to each other. Barris began photographing not only his own creations, but also the works of other craftsmen, as well as accompanying his photographs with practical manuals on creating a particular element of the machine. George Barris’ articles have been published for many years in the magazines Hot Rod, Car Craft, Custom Cars, Hop Up, Rod & Custom, Motor Life, Spotlite and many others, offering everyone step-by-step instructions on customizing their own car.

In addition, George Barris organized auto shows, sold miniature models of custom cars and collaborated with various car factories. In other words, through Barris’ efforts, custom culture was promoted everywhere: on screens, in print, on the radio, and physically directly. And in this regard, George Barris is the most respected: it was not least through his efforts that the custom scene grew to such a size that it allows it to exist to this day, decades after factories stopped producing the corresponding cars. As they said on one of the forums, “you were a fan of George Barris even before you knew what custom was.”