When George Barris has a bad day...

i was alive then to remember disco crap like that..i say its one of those "only a face a mother could love" kind of cars.. and i dont care what anybody says..!

 

With you on that ! Some of the worst examples of automotive bad taste came out of Barris fevered imagination.In fact i don't believe it is his work.It all appears to be the combined effort of a commitee of marketers designed to suck in the gullible. That Travolta thing is SHIT,is needs DONK wheels to complete It!

 

Heck, it's period 1979. You still have a mullet, or hair down to your neck all around like my dad did back then? You still think Travolta's cool and not gay?

Next someone will be calling Barris the Coddington of his day. Yeah, he built some goofy-ass cars here and there. There's a few that I don't get at all. But he built a lot of stuff for customers, and they were done for what the customer wanted, not to be a well-designed custom. Who was building traditional customs in 1979? The same number of people who dig the Revoltin' Fever car in 2007, most likely. So what? The guy had to make some kind of living.

As for this car, it's great if your fantasy is an alternate version of Smokey & The Bandit where Travolta is the Bandit and Fran Drescher as Frog. And probably Gabriel Kaplan (from Welcome Back Kotter) as Sherrif Justice. With any luck, both of those people will never meet or reproduce.

 

If were going to put George into the mix...especially to praise him for his early customs, dont for get Sam. He's the one that really made it happen.

 

Just pick up any carcraft or Hotrod frim the 70s and you will see that tasteless decades worth of similiar styling. It wasn't just Barris.

 

Travolta looks fucking scary in that pic.

 

Hmmmm... I think it's period correct, as u guys like to say here.
Thats an perfect roadtrack inspired "muscle car" from 70's.
Hey, check out your own old photos from that time and what u see? Embarrased? Well it was that time... and it comes back.
Now it's 60's style what's popular and next it's 70's! Prepare, or run for your life!

 

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100&#37;" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" width="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">I draw as a hobby and have many drawings over the years some are nice and a few are amaturish at best. What I'm saying is not everything we do is perfect, only one guy can do that. George and Sam are still the kings, I don't care what some guys think, what have they got to show the world anyhow. Rags
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sorry to piss in your cheerios.

I've been known to Praise and Bash George! and I make a point to Never Agree with Jim A

George has been at the top of the Kustom field for close to 60 years. Kustoms went away for many years and George remained in business. you either bend with the wind or you break. George is still here. George is like an old Carnie Barker he sucks them in to the big top, then builds what they want no matter how bad they suck, he gets paid. he is one one top promoters and salesmen in the history of the world. like it or not it can't be disputed.
I can't imagine anyone else that could build something like "The Greecian" and get paid for it, then get it in to top shows and magazines. That my Friend is Sales and Promotion at it's finest!
My hats off to George even if I have to agree with Jim A

Hey those aren't Cheerios

 

Lets bash John Travolta. Ain't it time for him to be on Oprah,with his airplanes. His eyes are making a wet spot in my pants.

 

http://www.barris.com/gallery_cars/TV_MovieCars/gallery_rat_u_la.html

 

you miss "the haters" point.

yes, the Barris brothers made some absofuckinglutely beautiful kustoms. we are all well aware of that, you're not schoolin anybody here. but george lost it somewhere along the way. some choose to ignore that, some don't. shit, Elvis got fat, but you don't hear anybody claiming he was skinny right up to the end, do ya?

 

You can't really fuck with Barris much, Anyone would do what he done. But definately fuck John Travolta, and fuck whoever built that "Gease Lightning" car. IMO

 

I love the '70s style IMSA / FIA Group2 Big fendered Racers and Street cars.

I own 2 of them.
And I have lots of pics of them on my Computer.

I saved a pic of this thing because its so foul its funny...

 

i like the Travolta firebird. I'd look good doing a continuous burnout in it-- (or maybe it has a four cylinder under the hood, lol) even better if i had hair, lol. The silly Travolta logo on the front speaks to the insanity of the times, i love it. The side striping coloring matches the rims and tires nicely. The side pipes and tailfin--oh yeah. Almost as cool as Bandit's ride....

Maybe some of you single sided followers need it to be more patina w/ red steel wheels or something ? To me Barris is the pimp of automobile customizing-- and you gotta go with the flamboyant ways that pimps sometimes dress (that George applied to cars.) A little flamboyant fur, chain here and there is fun. It is what it is.

-scott noteboom

 

That's pretty damn funny. Barris built Greased Lightning too.

I'm not a Barris fan. Do I respect the amount of work and some of the actual timeless builds...absolutely. There might be five Barris cars that I really like. That's five more historically important cars than I've built.

I can appreciate ideas of the past and how they were related to, and were products of, the times. Just like I love old Universal b/w horror movies. I watch them with the mindset of a moviegoer in the '30s. I am a GIANT horror movie fan, but there were crappy movies just like there were crappy cars. I don't have to like them all just because I am a horror movie fan. In fact, because I watch so many I think it's fair to say that my opinion of them is at least semi-valid. Just like car lovers and cars.

Just because a car was built "in the day" doesn't automatically make it cool or significant.

For the record, I'm not a big fan of most of Ed Roth's cars either. He was a genius marketer and one hell of an interesting character. That's why I love him.

 

in the late 70's, they were probably laughing at those bubble-top cars that roth built. The Can-Am look is pretty killer.

 

remember those cars bring big bucks everytime they get sold and most of the time you only get wind of every 5th time it gets sold. if it was in your garage and somebody said: take a 100k for it? bet it would get real fucking cool then.

 

Once again----------------------------------------- who fucking cares about 1971 any damn thing!!!!!!!!!

 

Now I'm damaged for life from this pic of a chick and "RATULA"......Thanks Mr Barris!

 

Anymore lip about Barris and THE CAR will be sent to your house to run your ass down!

 

Last year George Barris was the "guest" at a World of Wheels show here in town.
I had a chance to sit and talk with him for a couple of hours.

He said, "Some of the cars that my brother and I built over the years, were never meant to be from any particular period; or style."
"Customers would come to us with weird ideas of what THEY thought was "IN" or "POPULAR" for the day."

"We built what THEY wanted." "After all we had a business to run, bills to pay; and the more "off the wall" some of the designs were, we built them to order."

He went on to say, "There were several cars - and trucks - we built, that didn't really "turn my crank"; but, money was money, and they were built anyway."

 

hahahaha...

ok, I give up, I'm skeered now... honk honk....

For the record, I was commenting on one car, not the shop or the guy or whatever.

I was very surprised to read that it came out of his shop, after seeing pictures and threads about so many other cool rides that came out of the same place.



-W

 

As far as Barris goes....I leave at this ....even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Fitysix

 

who built the Invader?

Jay Ohrberg?

or Barris?

I am just curious

cause I liked that car when I was a kid

http://www.jayohrberg.com/resources/_wsb_508x395_The+Invader.jpg

 

Up your nose with a rubber hose!

That thing is not really that much uglier than any other "guido" styled Trans Am of that era, and hey, a guy's gotta put food on the table somehow.

 

lookie lookie what's for sale: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Pont...ategoryZ6420QQihZ006QQitemZ160175750913QQrdZ1

Looks like you can own the original-- current bid $26,300.

-scott noteboom

 

I had to laugh at some of the questions on that Ebay page, people are wondering why it 'doesn't look like a 1971 Firebird'...

Ah maybe because it's been CUSTOMISED.

And yeah, I love a lot of the early Barris custom cars, and some of the movie and TV cars like the Monkee mobile are cool, but this one worries me a bit....

http://www.barris.com/gallery_cars/shark/shark.html

I'm sorry, but how could you....

Cheers, Glen.

 

Hey, who posted the grandma betty? When your kids ask about getting a tattoo, show 'em that picture.

On the Shark, ugh. With some real wheels and ditch the second windshield - and dark paint - probably not bad. Those cars are a bastard to find the trim parts for, it looks like it's made up out of a couple of parts cars or something. I'm surprised it doesn't have a big shark fin on the trunk, though, that would complete the gay look.


John Travolta's Firebird Fever. Actually, it sounds like something you come down with and go to the doctor to get penicllyn for. Barris musta caught it, and while delirious thought up the car. The rest, is history.

 

priceless..