According to a Facebook post by Barris’ son Brett, George died in his sleep this morning, surrounded by his family.
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Barris died at his Los Angeles home with his family by his side, said Edward Lozzi, his longtime publicist and friend. He lived his life they way he wanted til the end.
While there may have eventually been custom cars without George Barris, they probably wouldn’t have been as cool and they certainly wouldn’t have been as widely known as they became.
The custom vehicle world probably would have started eventually without Barris, but Autoweek reports that the cars would not have been as cool if it was not for him.
A book released in September and co-authored by his son, “King of the Kustomizers: The Art of George Barris”, contained stories about the cars he designed along with many photos.
The most famous of all, the Batmobile, built from a refurbished 1955 Lincoln Futura, sold at auction two years ago for $4.2 million.
Born in Chicago on November 20, 1925, Barris and his brother Sam migrated to California as children and developed a keen interest in automobiles.
One of Barris’s most famous customer cars was the Hirohata Mercury, a custom that informed customizing trends more than any other single auto that comes to mind.
As a custom vehicle designer, Barris was among the best, designing scores of iconic cars for scores of movies and TV shows, such as K.I.T.T deom Knight Rider, the jalopy from The Beverly Hillbillies, the coach from The Munsters, the transformed DeLorean from Back to the Future, the stretch dune buggy in The Monkees, and even the General Lee onThe Dukes of Hazzard.
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For decades Barris worked out of a shop in a modest North Hollywood neighbourhood, just down the street from Universal Studios.
