The HAMB is reporting that George Barris has died

[grt222]

WOW, the mans  body isnt even cold yet and some cant wait to piss on his grave.

I am sorry but this isnt the time or the place  to desigrate the mans name

I"m not a big fan of him or most of his work . Sure ,, maybe  he wasnt a saint ( who is )  But he was a major player in the scene back froma time when most of us were just kids playing with toys. He was playing with the big stuff and making a huge name for himself

 

And as a far as I know the person who gets credit is usually the one paying the bills, ( then and now )

 

My condolences to the Barris family.

x4!

I own a shop with two employees. I pay their salary and take all the risk. When a car leaves the shop it has my name on it no matter who worked on it.

RIP Mr. BARRIS.

[Petetrucker07]

^Exactly. The sticker applied to the cars that came out of HIS shop said Barris Kustoms. Not built by me, George. Barris Kustoms is a brand, of sorts, the people employed by George, at Barris Kustoms built the cars.

I just can't believe that these controversies have laid idle for how long? Now, some of the first post here after his passing have been bashing the man. That, is just unbelievable. No respect for a talented man, talented businessman, and an employer with an for talented car customizers. 

[Dennis Lacy]

^Exactly. The sticker applied to the cars that came out of HIS shop said Barris Kustoms. Not built by me, George. Barris Kustoms is a brand, of sorts, the people employed by George, at Barris Kustoms built the cars.

This is an excellent perspective and it is true of any automotive customizing shop. The vehicles produced by that brand are a product of that brand. Not Joe, Dave, Steve and Nick that work there.

For example: My Dad and I have a shop called the Early V8 Garage and we specialize in flathead-era Fords, particularly in the 30's. We have our own product line and do mechanical work ranging from basic repairs to every last nut & bolt restorations or hot rods. My two hands produce 80% of our products but my name isn't on the box. When I complete a car build it is not built by Dennis, it is built by Early V8 Garage. Our shop is a brand just like Customs By Barris and anything that leaves the shop is a product of our brand. Doesn't hurt my feelings any. 

However, when someone compliments a particular project or car entire car that came out of our shop to my Dad and he had no little or no involvement in that particular project he is quick to point out that it is Me who deserves the credit, and visa versa.

I don't know a lot about George and am only familiar with a few of the vehicles to come out of his shop because I'm not into customs. I do know that it was George out there hustling his brand and promoting the custom car hobby in general, not his shop employees. It was his name on the sign, he payed the salaries and the bills and his butt assumed all of the liability. If it wasn't for George those employees wouldn't have had a shop to build cars in.

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is an excellent perspective and it is true of any automotive customizing shop. The vehicles produced by that brand are a product of that brand. Not Joe, Dave, Steve and Nick that work there.

While this is true in general overall principle, I'm sure by now that you and your father have discovered how incredibly difficult it is to get talented, skilled, hard-working and reliable employees...especially ones who have design ability.

A shop that is lucky enough to find such individuals to work there will find they don't stay too long if they're denied credit for their contributions and accomplishments.

[Dennis Lacy]

While this is true in general overall principle, I'm sure by now that you and your father have discovered how incredibly difficult it is to get talented, skilled, hard-working and reliable employees...especially ones who have design ability.

A shop that is lucky enough to find such individuals to work there will find they don't stay too long if they're denied credit for their contributions and accomplishments.

We don't have employees. Just him and me.

I would have to think that people who are Barris enthusiasts must know the names of at least some of the craftsman that worked there over the years and contributions they made to specific cars?

[Ace-Garageguy]

We don't have employees. Just him and me.

I would have to think that people who are Barris enthusiasts must know the names of at least some of the craftsman that worked there over the years and contributions they made to specific cars?

I'm sure you're right. While I wouldn't call myself a "Barris enthusiast" by any stretch of the imagination (although I am definitely an admirer of some of the cars he's legitimately credited with) I'm fairly well aware of who actually built and/or designed what, and the correct information is easily available anyway.

The ease with which one can check the truth of some of the claims made really makes me wonder why he found it necessary to put himself in the picture for cars he had essentially nothing to do with.

People who have genuine self-respect, earned self-respect (and Barris certainly accomplished enough on his own to merit feeling he was a 'somebody') don't have the need to steal credit from others. Self-promotion is an entirely different concept from outright pretending to have done someone else's work.

Perhaps he WAS aware that he wasn't the craftsman / designer / fabricator the legend portrayed him to be, and the fantasy-world was a pathological coping mechanism for feelings of inadequacy.

Whatever the problem was, the guy had a huge impact on the custom car world, and I think we should be glad of his real accomplishments and let the rest of the silly BS just drop. Kicking a dead man rarely accomplishes much of anything.

 

[fog cutter]

.... discovered how incredibly difficult it is to get talented, skilled, hard-working and reliable employees...especially ones who have design ability.

.... don't stay too long if they're denied credit for their contributions and accomplishments.

... genuine self-respect, earned self-respect...  don't have the need to steal credit from others. Self-promotion is an entirely different concept from outright pretending to have done someone else's work.

.... and the fantasy-world was a pathological coping mechanism for feelings of inadequacy....

 

i think a true craftsman (any trade) must incorporate some design into his tasks. better hands-off designers seek & value the input from the people doing the physical creating, realizing the final product will be more satisfactory. if the craftsman is adequately compensated (money/ fame/ or whatever the individual values), they'll continue to drink from the well.

[Dennis Lacy]

The ease with which one can check the truth of some of the claims made really makes me wonder why he found it necessary to put himself in the picture for cars he had essentially nothing to do with.

Were there cases where George took credit for cars his shop didn't even touch?

In hindsight I probably should have stayed out of the conversation because I really don't know much about him.

[Bernard Kron]

...I would have to think that people who are Barris enthusiasts must know the names of at least some of the craftsman that worked there over the years and contributions they made to specific cars?

George Barris co-wrote several important softcover books about his work which a critical to understanding his impact on the hot rod and customizing world. As I stated earlier, he was authentic and committed throughout his long life to a culture helped create. He was there as a teenager in the late pre-war years, training with one of the acknowledged masters in the art, was himself, along with his brother Sam, a key designer and tastemaker in the immediate postwar [period through the mid-50's, and then facilitated the emergence of a whole new heneration of masters who defined the art ,in the late 50's and 60's. He knew that and he clearly stated it in his books. But he was tempted and succumbed and frequently overstated the role he played in the creation of cars which were based on earlier work by others which were then modified and elaborated by his shop. This was an important aspect in what he and Sam did at Barris Kustoms as the shop gained fame. As time went on and George grew in fame and influence he would often purchase important cars and promote then. It was an easy step, then, to simply state them as "my car", which he often did.

The most important books by Barris are the 4 volume Barris Kustom Techniques of the 50's. First published in 1996, in them he clearly documents the arrival of the young talents to his shop, the informal "system" of apprenticeship and mentoring that he put in place, as he shows off the handiwork of what would become his team of co-conspirators. He also features a huge number of other cars from other shops from the period and discusses them in some detail.

As time went on most of these early greats left, some to become legends in their own right, and others to form the bedrock of the subculture. Almost all of them were bemused by the exploitation that George often practiced, keeping them at the shop to all hours and paying them a pittance for their work, or sometimes taking it in trade against use of the facilities and materials for their own cars. In later years they often spoke about it. But very few of them were bitter or critical about it. They understood quite clearly, as did George, the value of the exchange.

Here are 4 cars ascribed to Barris employees built in whole or in part at the Barris Kustoms shop.

Bill De Carr - For many years the key metal man at Barris, trained by George and Sam and carrying the torch (quite literally) after Sam left.

Bill De Carr's '41 Mercury

Bill Carr'sThe Aztec '55 Chevy - Confusingly, built by and with Bill De Carr, George and Sam, for Bill Carr who had no relation to Bill De Carr. Bill Carr worked at Barris' shop as well. Authorship for the car is generally acknowledged to have been from all of them working together in collaboration.

Herschel "Junior" Conway' '50 Ford - legendary in customizing circles for his paint jobs, he started at his career at Barris.

Dean Jeffries - Known as "The Kid" around the shop, the teenage Jeffries worked for/in/around the Barris shop, first as the house pinstriper and then as the resident creative paint genius. This is the first version of the Carol Lewis ' Chevy, the prototypic mild custom, largely stock but with Jeffries' wild paint. Lewis was Jeffries' high school girl friend. Jeffries claimed to have never actually worked "for" Barris but he was ubiquitous in the shop throughout the late 50's, saved Lewis' car from the '57 fire, was often photographed working in the shop, etc. In an age before worker benefits the subject can be murky. Certainly even at that point Barris' tendency to exploit was known by many and some avoided being direct employees for fear they would get sucked into the already huge amount of work being done. For more on this refer to Larry Watson, the other paint genius who followed Jeffries about a year later. Watson worked free-lance in high school and opened his shop next door to Barris upon graduation.

Edited November 8, 2015 by Bernard Kron

[1930fordpickup]

If it went through his shop he gets the credit.  

If it never entered his shop then that's just wrong. 

[Dennis Lacy]

Okay, I just did some digging and it is very true that George took tons of credit for cars he had absolutely nothing to do with. Especially TV / Movie cars. I was under the assumption that he just didn't mention his shop workers names. He flat out claims work that he or his shop never had any involvement in. Looks like the guy was kind of a douche bag. Apparently he had some legal action threatened from Universal because he was trying to say he had a hand in the original BTTF Delorean time machine. 

 

[Bernard Kron]

Okay, I just did some digging and it is very true that George took tons of credit for cars he had absolutely nothing to do with. Especially TV / Movie cars. I was under the assumption that he just didn't mention his shop workers names. He flat out claims work that he or his shop never had any involvement in. Looks like the guy was kind of a douche bag. Apparently he had some legal action threatened from Universal because he was trying to say he had a hand in the original BTTF Delorean time machine. 

 

Cars for The Stars was always George's weak spot. It may very well be part of what led to Sam's estrangement. Certainly it added a pressure-cooker environment to George's world once he started building cars for TV shows and movies. Many of these cars were jobbed out or completed to more than questionable standards in a matter of weeks. This sort of thing is common in the entertainment world where production people would rather throw money at the creative issue to be able to say "yes" to someone else further along the food chain than to concern themselves with creative quality. For example George claimed the Futura-based Batman car was built in 3 weeks, and despite it's clear Futura roots it still involved a good deal of paint and bodywork. In any case it was a period where George descended inexorably into the moral abyss, buying up cars for his eventual Kustom City operation and claiming them as his. Perhaps one of the most notorious, and in some ways insensitive, was his claims to Dean Jeffries' Black Beauty which he acquired shortly after its success in the TV series Green Hornet. Even at the time it was known as Jeffries' car, so Barris' attitude was almost delusional.

Jeffries and Beauties:

Much the same could be said about another Barris acquisition built by Jeffries which has been mentioned above, what Barris termed "my Monkeemobile"...

Despite George Barris' efforts in later life to promote and document the golden age he had helped create, the damage to George's reputation was permanent and irretrievable as can be seen by all the comments in these pages.

George in the Moral Abyss:

Edited November 8, 2015 by Bernard Kron

[Scott Colmer]

George had a great life. I first got to know him through the pages of Rod & Custom and especially liked the interview with him and Big Daddy Roth. I saw him at a number of car shows over the last few years and he always seemed to be enjoying himself. He was a pioneer although at times he could also be very controversial. I hope the Drag-u-la is brought out for his funeral which will surely attract the whose who of the car hobby world.

RIP

George Barris was a fixture at the SoCal car shows. I have seen him many times and it was always a neat thing. He put in a lot of time being George Barris, which is perfectly OK. A lot of good things came from that including some great car models. He did build his own legend - both good and bad. 

Re: The Dragula -see below from wikipedia. Perfect fit for this thread. Maybe even ironic.

DRAG-U-LA, along with the Munster Koach, was one of two cars designed by Tom Daniel while working for George Barris and Barris Kustom Industries for the television show The Munsters.

 

Edited November 7, 2015 by Scott Colmer

[Petetrucker07]

Again, George hired the best, for HIS shop. All those cars said Barris Kustoms, not Built by George. 

Give the man respect. He passed away, quit pissin on the man. He was a flawed human being, like the rest of us. He did some amazing things. 

It's a shame people feel the need to stomp on him after he's gone. I don't think anybody is groveling at his feet. I'm a fan of anything cool.

I don't remember anybody doing this to Boyd after he passed. His guys did the work, he took credit for it. So that's ok? 

 

[Dennis Lacy]

 

I don't remember anybody doing this to Boyd after he passed. His guys did the work, he took credit for it. So that's ok? 

LOL, plenty of people didn't like Boyd Coddington. I would venture a guess more so than George. I've had conversations with former employees of Boyd and they agreed he was really good at being the jerk that his cable show portrayed him as. 

Edited November 7, 2015 by Dennis Lacy

[scummy]

I think this thread can be locked now as it's getting ugly .

[High octane]

I'm sure you're right. While I wouldn't call myself a "Barris enthusiast" by any stretch of the imagination (although I am definitely an admirer of some of the cars he's legitimately credited with) I'm fairly well aware of who actually built and/or designed what, and the correct information is easily available anyway.

The ease with which one can check the truth of some of the claims made really makes me wonder why he found it necessary to put himself in the picture for cars he had essentially nothing to do with.

People who have genuine self-respect, earned self-respect (and Barris certainly accomplished enough on his own to merit feeling he was a 'somebody') don't have the need to steal credit from others. Self-promotion is an entirely different concept from outright pretending to have done someone else's work.

Perhaps he WAS aware that he wasn't the craftsman / designer / fabricator the legend portrayed him to be, and the fantasy-world was a pathological coping mechanism for feelings of inadequacy.

Whatever the problem was, the guy had a huge impact on the custom car world, and I think we should be glad of his real accomplishments and let the rest of the silly BS just drop. Kicking a dead man rarely accomplishes much of anything.

 

I was in a model car club with a guy that was a self promoter, and wonder why his arm was never in a "sling" as he was always pattin' himself on the back, and I do mean always.

[kruleworld]

Apparently I'm the only one here who thinks that actively taking credit for someone else's work is wrong.

No, you're just the only one willing to speak his mind. I held back because i didn't think it was warranted unless someone came out with incorrect information.

i agree he was a bit vague when claiming he 'built' a certain tv show car (often 'built' as in built-a-replica) but i think most of it was shoddy reporters and 'heard it, regurgitated it*' people who didn't know better. He didn't design or build the Monkeymobile or the Green Hornet's black beauty.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Its poor tatse to speak ill of the dead.

Barris was one of the pioneers that made custmizing what it is. 

[Greg Myers]

Make a LEGO Batmobile 

 

http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/help-george-barris-batmobile-become-lego-set-you-can-buy

[mredjr]

I met George Barris about 12 years ago he was a great guy. My son lived in California and took me to his original shop and showroom he was there that day and took me on a tour and told me about each of the cars we looked at. He treated me like he had known me all of his life and really made me feel welcome. I will always remember that special day in my life. My condolence to his family. Elvin