Car Designer to the Stars
George Barris’ showroom is like an automotive shrine to Hollywood.
Movie posters hang as seamlessly as wallpaper in the interior of his North Hollywood shop, Barris Kustoms, which turned out the legendary machines featured in movies like “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Cannonball Run.”
You can also see photos of vehicles Barris “kustomized” for the stars. For Elvis Presley, the roof liner of a Cadillac Fleetwood was studded with gold records. For Bob Hope, Barris attached a ski-slope nose to the front of a golf cart.
Though he may be past his pioneering heyday, the 75-year-old Barris stays busy, providing cars for upcoming movie remakes of “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “Charlie’s Angels.” A collection of his movie and toy cars goes on exhibit June 15 at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.
A giant in the industry, there is little Barris hasn’t done in the way of modifying cars. And now, the man who brought you the Oscar Mayer hot dog on wheels may be adding his imprint to the next Mars rover.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has contacted Barris for information on the Moon Scope, a space toy Barris designed four decades ago.
“I was intrigued by the wheel and suspension design and how far ahead of its time it was,” Robert Yowell, a NASA project engineer based in Houston, wrote to Barris last year. “Is there any way you could provide me background on the design of this vehicle?”
The six-wheeled palm-sized model Moon Scope never left the Earth’s atmosphere, but with its spaced-out dune buggy looks, it was as cool as any real lunar lander to Yowell, an avid Hot Wheels toy collector who works in a unit that designs spacesuits and surface vehicles for NASA missions.
Barris, accustomed to calls from Hollywood’s biggest studios and brightest stars, says he was genuinely shocked by the inquiry from NASA.
“I couldn’t even remember what a Moon Scope was,” said Barris, who lives in Encino. “I made that thing 40 years ago. I was wondering how they found it and what they wanted me to do.”
Barris sent the space agency what photos and plans he could scrounge up from a ton of plans, press clippings and photographs chronicling his career.
NASA Digs in Toy Bins for Inspiration
In a brief interview, Yowell confirmed he had contacted Barris but declined to say more, citing NASA policy against compromising project secrecy.
Yowell also would not say if NASA planned to borrow Barris’ design. (Perhaps not surprisingly: Would you want to be the one to say the idea for the world’s most advanced spacecraft came from a toy?)
But agency spokesman Phil West said NASA scientists go through their toy bins all the time for inspiration.
“[Yowell] was just doing research, as anybody would do, to see what other designers are doing out there on the planet,” West said. “Generally, people making toys and movies are free to take license with the art form and not follow the laws of Isaac Newton like we do.”
That’s true. The car Barris designed for the “Inspector Gadget” movie only needed to look super high-tech. Computer animation enabled it to hover and morph into other vehicles.
Nonetheless, West said, the independent suspension, large front and rear wheels and smaller middle wheel on the two-seater Moon Scope resemble actual landers built by NASA.
“Occasionally you do see some crossover between toys and reality,” he said. “Any vehicle riding on the surface will have to deal with some of the same conditions we deal with here on Earth.”
So far there’s no money in the deal for Barris, and West said the agency has no formal relationship with him.
“But, hey, they asked for my design,” Barris said. “It must have been pretty good. That means something.”
The Moon Scope is not the only high-profile miniature in Barris’ garage. After creating nearly every big-named car for screens big and small--the General Lee from “Dukes of Hazzard,” KITT from “Knight Rider” and Greased Lightning from the movie “Grease,” to name a few--Barris has turned much of his attention to licensing toy models of his work.
Little A-Team vans and “Starsky and Hutch” cars are parked on shelves in his office. They have been dusty since the Northridge earthquake. Barris opened another door inside the office to reveal a collection of tiny Batmobiles and dolls that fit inside them.
Some of the itty-bitty cars, such as chopped-top 1957 Mercurys, have no movie fame at all. But they are in just as high demand as the creepy Munsters hot rod Barris built for the TV show, he said.
“Everybody likes to have their own hot rod,” said Barris, who built a chopped-top ’34 Ford for actor Kurt Russell. “Now the toy industry can duplicate those cars so everybody can own their own hot rod.”
Pokemon Beetle Hottest Toy Car
Some of his top money-making creations are toy cars with their identities embossed on their undercarriages. The hottest of them all this year is Hasbro’s Pokemon Beetle, a bright yellow Bug with pointed ears and a zigzag tail fashioned to look like the chirpy Pikachu.
He also designed the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers vans, cars and motorcycles that come together to form a rainbow-colored fighting robot.
“I’ll put a super-wide fin here or a rocket booster there,” he said. “When they tell me what ideas they have for the car, I can always come up with that distinct look that makes the car a character of its own. A car has to be casted right to work.”
Most of his movie cars, even the foot-powered Flintstone mobile, have to be drivable.
Most of the toy cars do too, but some like the Power Ranger vehicles give the artist in Barris a chance to create outside the bounds of practicality.
“I will never run out of ideas,” he said.
