George Barris (auto customizer)

George and his brother Sam (1924–1967) were born in Chicago in the 1920s.

Their father was a Greek immigrant from Chios.

Their mother died a few years after the brothers were born.

When Barris was three years old, Barris's father sent the brothers to live with an uncle and his wife in Roseville, California.

By the age of seven, Barris was building and modifying model cars made of balsa wood.

His model cars won contests sponsored by hobby shops for careful attention to detail.

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.

Born in Chicago on November 20, 1925, Barris and his brother Sam moved to California to live with relatives.

By his high school graduation, Barris had customized and sold multiple cars.

The brothers worked at the Greek restaurant owned by their family and were given a dilapidated 1925 Buick for their help.

They swiftly restored it to running condition and experimented with changing its appearance.

This became the first Barris Brothers custom car.

They sold it at a profit to buy another project vehicle.

Before George graduated from high school, demand for their work was growing, and they had created a club for owners of custom vehicles, called the Kustoms Car Club.

This was the first use of the spelling "Kustom", which would become associated with Barris.

Barris attended San Juan High School and "rushed to sweep floors at a local auto body shop as soon as school let out".

Barris resisted his family's desire for him to work at its Greek restaurant in a Sacramento suburb.

He moved to Los Angeles after turning 18 years old to "become part of the emerging teen car culture" and opened the "Barris Custom Shop" on Imperial Highway in Bell, California.

George and Sam Barris built their "kustom" designs for private buyers.

George also built and raced his own cars briefly.

Soon, Hollywood studio executives and stars wanted the custom cars for personal use and as film props.

Robert E. Petersen publicized the Barris cars through car shows and by publishing George's how-to articles in Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines.

In addition, Sam built Ala Kart, a 1929 Ford Model A roadster pickup.

After taking two AMBR (America's Most Beautiful Roadster) wins in a row, the car made numerous film and television appearances, usually in the background of diner scenes.

In the 1950s, Barris's business became Barris Kustom Industries.

It also established the early 1950s Mercury as a popular basis for custom car design.

Sam left the business in the 1950s.

George continued in the business with his wife Shirley, and the business became Barris Kustom Industries.

The company licensed its designs to model car manufacturers such as Aurora, Revell, MPC, and AMT, which spread the Barris name into the model builder community.

He moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen to build custom cars for private buyers, including the Hirohata Merc in 1951.

In 1951, the Barris Brothers designed and built the Hirohata Merc as a customer order based on Sam Barris's own custom car.

The Hirohata Merc was shown at the 1952 General Motors Motorama auto show and was so popular, it overshadowed the best work of Detroit's top designers.

Barris's company designed and built vehicles for multiple television series in the 1960s, including Batman, The Munsters, and The Beverly Hillbillies.

Barris's company designed and built custom cars for celebrities and private individuals.

His company also built replicas of cars.

In the early 1960s, Barris, along with other well-known customizers (Gene Winfield, Dean Jeffries and the Alexander Brothers) reworked production cars for Ford's "Custom Car Caravan" and "Lincoln/Mercury's Caravan of Stars".

The traveling exhibits were designed to appeal to younger car buyers.

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 series and film.

Barris died in Encino, Los Angeles on November 5, 2015.