History Barris Speaks: "Building The Batmobile In 1965" !

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To All My Fellow Hambers, I wanted to share this with you...​

GEORGE BARRIS : BUILDING THE BATMOBILE !​

In late-1965 Barris was commissioned to build a version of the legendary DC Comics "Batmobile" after Dean Jeffries had to pass on the project due to its time-frame. ​

It was for the newly-created "Batman" TV Series which was to debut on January 12, 1966...and George had only three weeks to do it !!​

So, in honor of the Anniversary of both the Series, and, the much-beloved Barris "Batmobile", here's my Interview with George explaining how it all came together...​

PLUS, you'll hear Batman & Robin take-off in that iconic ride !! Simply turn up your speakers, sit back, click-on here , and enjoy !!! ​

Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net ​

 

Bob...thanks for the eMail ! Yes, that IS me in the St. Louis Batcave in the Summer of '66 !

George's memories on the build & his inside info on the paint scheme is very cool !!
http://www.legends.thewwbc.net/gpage23.html

Jonnie

 

Enjoyed the interview with Barris and glad you mentioned Dick Dean as he was a good friend from way back in the Detroit days. Also I think Bill Cushenbery needs to be mentioned because both he and Dick Dean did almost all the work on the original Batmobile and the subsequent copies that they needed for the production on the TV series.

 

In 1965 my dad would take me into Barris's shop to see what was going on.( We lived in North Hollywood) I was five and remember it still. My brother and I would sit in the Go-Karts that lined the front window. I remember looking into the back and seeing it there but I had no concept of what it was until later when I would see it on tv. That was a long time ago it seems. Cool.

 

hotrod1940...

Thanks for bringing up Bill. Yes, he and Dick did so much work on it, and the copies.

Sadly, they both passed away before I started the HOF Legends Series. I would have loved to have their stories archived too.

Neat thing was that they had the Futura to build from! I added Model pix of both the Orig. & the Batmobile to the Page:
http://www.legends.thewwbc.net/gpage23.html

Jonnie

 

curbspeed,

What great memories ! WoW ! Thanks for sharing this...you saw The Batmobile before its debut...which would have been at the same "Bat Time" on the same "Bat Channel" !

Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net

 

"HOLY BAT-BUCKS !" Barris' Original BATMOBILE Sells At The Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona For $4.62 MILLION DOLLARS on January 19, 2013 ! ​

Well, in case you missed it before, or, you're new to the HAMB, here is GEORGE BARRIS in one of our earliest Interviews explaining the full story of the Origin, Concept & Design of the World Famous TV "BATMOBILE" ! ​

THIS IS A CLASSIC ! It's a new version of the Interview that I've created, with a Mini-Origin of the "Batman" himself, PLUS action-audio from the Batmobile along with Batman & Robin. It's short, cool...and the kids will love it too !

Fasten your seatbelts and Click-On Here ! ENJOY !

Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net
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Iam at a loss for words.

 

It's funny, but I'm almost tired of hearing about the Bat Mobile.

 

Another gaymobile sold for $$$ thread. Lame. Delete as all the others.

 

Me. too.

 

I'm pretty sure the HAMB was not invented just for your own personal experiences.
Others on here may very well be interested in this thread.
Even if it was locked, it's still of use.
But you want it deleted?? WTF for?

 

LIFESTYLZ,

Thanks for your kind comments. Hope you actually got to hear the story. Here's the link again if you need it:
http://www.legends.thewwbc.net/gpage23.html

The HOF Legends Series, since 2007, has documented the voices, histories, and, stories of Barris, Winfield, Starbird, D'Agostino, Bailon, Huff, Stanford, Spence Murray, Posie, Dick Megugorac, Norm Grabowski, Chuck Miller, et al. They're preserved for their historic value to the R&C culture.

I work on the Hall Of Fame Legends Site 7 days a week, trying to preserve all of these legendary builders/pioneers stories so that people all over the world can hear them...now and in the future.

This story is from an early Interview that I did with George and is an integral part of his history just as his stories about the Hirohata Merc, the Bugarin Merc, the Golden Sahara, or, the Ala Kart, that are on the HOF Legends Site are.

Also, thanks to Tim for the eMail...really cool that you got to hear it for the first time, as well as the Golden Sahara story !

Jonnie www.legends.thewwbc.net

 

I can't really say I ever did like the over-all "look" of the Barris Batmobile.

Although, that being said, I DID really want the Matchbox Batmobile toy car with the orange pellets that fired out of the upward facing rocket tubes. Actually I wanted it because the red headed neighbor child had one, and he had too much of everything cool... like the plastic glow-in-the-dark Wierdo Models, the Frankenstein 'moving-hand' Coin Bank, and (this was then the pinnacle) the drooling nervous hallway access to the greatest pre-'73 Playboy Magazine collection ever!
What would have somewhat pleased me now, to think, would have to have gotten a few more punches in back then, but that wouldn't have been me, that would have been him. I'll be content in the now, as then, to have had my Karate chop Big Jim first.
And what does all that matter anyhoo, because in a year or two my new and older-neighborhood-boy chum will be modifying car models with me as I stare in disbelief at the REAL Angel Hair tangled about his Dad's REAL custom car trophies.
This did for me, change everything car.
His Dad had a REAL plastic-bubble topped customized automobile. I believe it to be a sectioned '49 Studebaker(they were from Calgary, if anyone else remembers).
To me this was Barris, I mean this is my neighbor the REAL kind of Barris. But, not in a book, actually in the shed shop melting windshield glass to make marbles for us and with his interpretative Ford C-cab "Munster" mobile build as a backdrop.
This brings me to the realization then that people can build great cars in their own yards, cars that would be like the cars in magazines. Cars with style that did eclipse the very production cars they came from.
So now the perversion takes flight, and I research within every old car mag I can get a hold of. Looking and deciding what design features I like, and that work with the given proportions, and of what I didn't and does not.
And here is where I get jaded, and with just NO where to throw that(that would be right back at me), my "Pow" punch. I did not know and was not somehow aware of this, this that there were other designs by the Big Three that were beyond anything production. That REALLY stylized automobiles existed other than what magazine customizers were creating in their sheds and shops with the family grocery-getters. I should have held(on), with better focus in such a trance, less Model Car and more Motor Trend. To know this maybe sooner... so... alas.
The new and improved hunt would be for these, the Design Room cars. To these books so hard to locate before the computer libraries. And this would eventually lead me to The Style House of Ghia(the Italian one and sure, yes-no, not the one in Oregon), and WHAT they did build(as I had both the '58 and '65 Karmann and did get to drive the '68 Dodge, I did yes!!) to fulfill both the fantasies of the public and the executives. And this, THIS FANTASY, the fantastic 1955 Lincoln(Ghia) Futura Concept.
The '55 Lincoln Futura is a most beautiful automobile designed by Bill Schmidt at LINCOLN, period. Ghia, actually, was just the 'best priced' contract coachwork builder at this time for Lincoln.
As far as the Batmobile is concerned, I guess the credit really should go to an Eddie Graves who was the production manager for the t.v. series. And of course Bill Cushenbery, as I am certain of his improvements. There is no doubt that the Batmobile is a somewhat handsome car, a rugged stripped down monochromatic version that one perhaps would take to say a demolition derby as the shiny station-wagon you just can't wait to see bashed in, "Ker Pow" and "Wammo".
The 1966 Barris-built Batmobile just isn't, in my opinion, as great as it gets in our world of customizing cars. I don't even think it is as GREAT as it gets in The Barris World of Kustom Kars either. I think if one would want a over-stylized production-type car that Barris made a half-hearted attempt at redefining in all things campy, I would perhaps choose Farrah's Foxy Vette. Or maybe something more Death Race 2000, but hey, heck no that would be Jeffries, or is it Dean? And I would not want one anyhoo. Nice teeth?
No, I just think that an over-stylized-to-my-liking one-off custom for me would definitely be the 1955 Lincoln Futura in all its original glory!
It is perfectly dreamy.
Unfortunate, I seem so stuck in some way. Stuck with an interfering memory. A memory shiny, but not mirror straight. Instead more polished or rubbed. I see in my World of Wheels mental recollections the images of a crazed or cracked patina, that of quick art and stage production. This is my memory of that Batmobile. Not terrific.
More horrific.
I like to believe that I, perhaps, viewed only a clone. A copy, and not the "Wonder". Not the REAL Batmobile, not the Batmobile that was and somewhere-lurking beneath Bruce Wayne's manner is, the Lincoln Futura. The Futura is NOT gone.
I would like to think that four million, six hundred, and twenty thousand thoughtfull reasons declare that the 1955 dream car will rise again... and from the dark, the dark of a fallen living room wall and back up into the light.
Ya, ya that's the ticket... into the light of Galpin Auto Sports for a complete resurrection of the past, ya, the past that is past the earlier past... part.
Err... hmm
Okay, that's quite enough psycho-babble for a time.
Now... go on,turn The Cramps record over to side one and be mindful of the 3 Dimension glasses as they are not a toy and Lux has got a bone to pick. Pass Rick a Bud Light and get a Valium for yourself because you know you got ...
"96 tears and 96 eyes"

ahh... ps' THANKS Jonnie!

and shinyside for your enthusiasm and Ebert, I am at a loss too, but I did tried and LIFESTYLZ it's true for both me and you and "the personal e..."

okay- now I am being the same old ASS I is in '12(I said I wouldn't) and now I gotta cue this needle... AND THANK YOU GEORGE BARRIS!!!

 

Personally, i liked it better as the futura. before gb "built" it.

 

I wonder what it would cost to just knock off a copy of the batmobile? Any ideas?

 

Your link isnt working for me



I've never been into the superhero type shit, but the OG batmobile has always seemed cool to me, aittle over the top, but cool.

 

The Futura is gone. Time to move on. The auction is over. So is this thread.

 

Have you been promoted to Mod status ??

This thread IS NOT about the auction.
It is about George Barris and Kustom cars.

 

Touchy touchy aren't we?!!??

 

TR Waters>

Punch. Punch. Punch. Pow!

you are out, you're out cold... now Robin, let's back to Commissioner Gordon's daughter.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3441662#post3441662

I saw these in Virgina, in 2008