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The museum contains an exhibit of collectors' autos from vintage to modern classics, with the main focus being American cars of the 1950–1980 period, over 50 famous TV and movie cars, cars previously owned by the rich and famous, and a large, one-of-a-kind, Disney and Looney Tunes characters display. Unique to this museum is that many of the ...
George Barris (born George Salapatas; November 20, 1925 – November 5, 2015) was an American designer and builder of Hollywood custom cars. Barris designed and built the Hirohata Merc . Barris's company, Barris Kustom Industries, designed and built the Munster Koach and DRAG-U-LA for The Munsters ; and the 1966 Batmobile for the Batman TV ...
The Hirohata Merc is a 1950s lead sled [1] custom car, often called "the most famous custom of the classic era". [2] [3] Setting a style and an attitude, it had a "momentous effect" on custom car builders, [4] appeared in several magazines at the time [5] and has reappeared numerous times since, earning an honorable mention on Rod & Custom ' s "Twenty Best of All Time" list in 1991. [5]
The Munster Koach is the family car that was used in the television series, The Munsters.The show's producers contracted George Barris to provide the Koach. Barris paid show car designer Tom Daniel $200 to design the car, and had it built at Barris Kustoms, first by Tex Smith, but finished by Dick Dean, his shop foreman at the time.
The first Detroit Autorama was held at the University of Detroit Memorial Building on January 31 and February 1, 1953. [7] It featured only 40 cars, and was hosted by members of the Michigan Hot Rod Association (MHRA), which was created only a year before to "organize small local clubs into one unified body that could raise the money needed to pull drag racing off the streets and into a safe ...
The fiberglass body of DRAG-U-LA was built from a coffin that Richard "Korky" Korkes, Barris's project engineer, was able to purchase from a funeral home in North Hollywood. Korkes said in 2013 that it was illegal to sell a coffin without a death certificate, so he made a deal with the funeral director to pay in cash and have the coffin left ...
A series of rare photos of American icon Marilyn Monroe are set to hit the auction block soon and they're expected to fetch a pretty penny. Six photos taken by photographer and friend George ...
Barris later acquired a fourth replica, a metal car built on a 1958 Ford Thunderbird. [citation needed] Barris retained ownership of the car after its conversion to the Batmobile, leasing it to the TV studio for filming. After production of the TV series ended, it was displayed in Barris' own museum in California.