History Some Barris Cars Had Bad Luck!

What a thing to wake up to....thank EVEL for ruining my day. haha!!!

 

Great thread... finally something with some content

 

Thanks Evel and Rik. This is an interesting topic.

 

Thanks Piero for the thread and Rik for the snippets. Very interesting (and scary) all at the same time!

 

George is such a wonderful man!! Met him a couple of times at VLV.
Got him to sign my jacket, and take photos with him. He LOVES the ladies!
My wife adores him!

 

Scanning through the posts I didn't see any mention of this. The Sam Barris Buick was wrecked or deteriorated to the point it was essentially scrap. Kurt McCormick rescued the car and resurrected/restored it.

 

Lets not forget Jerry Quesnel`s merc, when the new owner had it (after Jerry) he had some pretty bad damage to rear end of that car. The kid had brought the car back to the Barris shop to try to have them repair it.

 

Neat thread, wonder if Darryl is still trying to sell the 3 window?

 

This is a great thread.

 

Howdy Thanks for sharing such valuble information .I have had the pleasure of meeting George Barris and Mrs.Barris at the James Dean Run,in Fairmount, Indiana, also Gene Winfeild, and Bill Hines. How Great it was too meet people you've read about as a kid in some store, talking a peek inside the Car mags of the time. happy motorin

 

The Sam Barris Buick was not wrecked... it was left to rot, does not count for this thread. However one of Sam's son got sick in the freshly upholstered back seat (velvet type of upholstery)... so that almost counts in this thread.

 

Not trying to argue with you Evel but on the 41 Buick ,I always thought that George wrecked that himself .In his book "techniques-volume 1 pg-35 he says " I wasnt always as careful as i should of been . Oh well,it gave me a chance to do some work." I guess it doesnt matter , I just thought George banged it up.
We have to remember a lot of these cars were daily drivers and they did get banged up pretty often. It is kind of hard to look at though.

 

Can anyone list all the cars that were lost in the shop fire?
IIRC, Jane Mansfield's car and the Wildcat F 100 were a couple. Dean Jeffries was able to back his girlfiend's car (56 Chevy?) out of the building to safety. Always wondered if he thought about selecting a different vehicle? Guess that would have been the end of the girlfriend.

Also, I believe the Bettancout/Zupan Merc was stolen from Dean Jeffrey's shop lot around 1970. Not sure if it's ever resurfaced?

Barris bought the James Dean Spyder to part out and display. Legens of the car rolling off the truck and injuring the truck driver as well as the drivetrain parts going into other Porsches only to end with fatal consequenses.

 

Do you know what ever became of this car with the quad headlights? Was it ever a finished car? Any more pics of it? That is a really cool looking front end.

 

Excellent thread and content.....man what a string of Bad Luck....but the comment about them being "drivers" is right on the money

 

Thanks everyone for the good words and thanks Rik for the additional information..

The car above was called "the china man" and was never rebuilt..a friend of mine is collecting parts to eventually make a clone of it..

 

Great thread Evel and Rik. It's a bummer to look at those pics, but neat to hear some of the history. I never knew the Hirohata Merc. was wrecked. It's good to see those iconic cars were driven!

 

Its on the Watson Clock poster in the middle at the very top done in Green!

 

This is what George said about the accident not to long ago.

"Some time Later the car was in an accident. A friend of George was trying to drive the car from a scene where Police had showed up and where George was arrested. He apparently lost control over the car and crashed it.
But George decided he could fix the car and updated it at the same time. George now used a cut down 1946 Caddy grille and new tire/hubcap combination."

 

This is the same car but before the later quad headlights and other additions.
And even then the grille was already damaged. I guess this car really had some bad karma.




And here it is with the unharmed grille




And here is a color photo of the car (behind Junior's Shoebox) and a soft green and black primer.

 

Don't forget that Zaro got in an accident in his '40 Merc on the way to the Barris shop the day he was taking it in to get the chop done.

 

Damn the before of the chinaman was cool.. Great pic Rik!!

As for the story about George's 41 this is what he told me directly..I don't know about what was written but it could of been a mix up on Georges part

 

Cool thread, thanks Evel!

 

Here some pics of the Dream truck & Carl Green when it was Dewey, Ok....







My truck was in the shop when the dream truck was there. I wish I knew what
was going on back then.... I would have taken a lot of pictures.

Happy Trails, Mick

 

Wow....excellent post...thanks!

 

Thanks for posting some very interesting history.

 

Awesome, thanks for the history lesson!

 

super cool thread..thanks EVEL and RIK!
if you ever find that photo of the jack stewart wrecked..please give me a call! Lol
-palle