History The Barris '53 Glazier Oldsmobile is heading off to Auction

Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post:

The Barris '53 Glazier Oldsmobile is heading off to Auction

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would it be wrong to have the interior redone in red and white tuck and roll?

 

Umm…Maybe it’s just me IDK, but doesn’t it look like the tailpipes are maybe sticking out too far?… It looked like they dragged going in the trailer and something broke! That being the case, I sure hope they realize that and fix it before it goes over the auction block. Not sure, but I think it only had single exhaust when it was pulled from storage. A nice period Custom, for sure…Chip did an awesome job bringing that Olds back to life while preserving the Barris originality!!..Here’s my 53 98 Holiday Hardtop I just scored after many years of chasing it. A nice solid Virginia car, it was quite a project getting it unburied and out of that storage unit.

 

Cool that the car is out of the garage and preserved. Hopefully the new owner will keep it up and running and maybe even get it out some.

 

I love it, and I would totally own it if I had the means. I'll be curious to see what it goes for, I don't think this era of custom is really popular right now, it could be a reasonable deal for the right buyer.

And I know I'm being a dick for pointing this out, but it's "striping", not "stripping", which is very different. I apologize, I know, it's just a pet peeve.

 

Fixed! Thanks for that...
Goes without saying that I was not an English major in school. =-)

 

I'm not sure the pipes were out to far as that may have been redone to historical imagery but you are correct that they took a couple of good hits going into the truck and were knocked out of alignment and maybe more and who knows what happened on the way back out...

@Jive-Bomber, thanks for sharing...always good to see the survivor's getting out and given another chance and typically it can be an expensive revival but it doesn't affect the love for what they are visually...

 

The estimated sale price on the Mecum website is $200,000 to $300,000

 

Hopefully it brings good money, but that is about 10x what I might ever be able to afford to pay for it.

 

I would imagine that “ Barris Provenance” can and will enhance the value of any car. I’m just stating the obvious, I guess…

 

75,000 bid pretty low

 

Didn't sell

 

I’m not a custom fan, but when I saw it this afternoon during the auction coverage I thought it was pretty well preserved and given the era when it was modified it looked OK. But then the camera panned to show the turquoise and white interior, the juxtaposition is odd, bizarre even.
Different strokes for different folks.

 

From the Foose videos, it looked like the outside was customized, but the interior was factory stock design and color.

 

Maybe they ran out of money and the interior stayed undone...hence that saying...are they ever finished...I guess today you might be able to paint it if condition was passable...turquoise could go too a shade of red...

Just an observation not related to your post but I'll ask since I'm posting, was the paint on this Custom supposed to be satin/semigloss, as I was thinking it lacked the shine you'd expect from a custom paintjob. I didn't think satin was a thing back then...

 

I definitely agree!.. Like any auction, you have to do everything possible to try to ensure that the right people are in the room. This might have been the epic failure here. I think this is the sad reality in many of today’s collector car auctions. Despite the historical significance, the Barris pedigree, the incredible survivor condition, it’s gonna be a hard sell to a room full of guys that would rather go home with something slammed to the ground on air bags, big wheels and a LS motor.
It was the Right car at the Wrong venue…

 

most customs, outside of a small handful of cars are almost always never going to do well at auction if your looking for a big crazy number. The pool of buyers is relatively small across the entire world for full/radical customs so being able to get even 2-3 of them in one spot to start a bidding war if they all wanted it is pretty slim. With customs being such one off cars, its also common for custom fans to not even like it. I'm sure all of us with full/radical cars have heard the comments and such before when showing our cars, its just par for the course. Its such a niche category of cars that its almost next to impossible to give a estimate of value. Cant even compare to similar Barris built cars because they are so radically different from each other.

 

Regarding the non-matching interior, it's a snapshot of what this car was at that period in time.

Those that think it needs a new interior to be right I think are missing the point. Hot rods and customs were owned by regular average people, and the outside being done and the interior not is a reflection of that. It answers a question of what customs looked like in the day. The answer is they weren't always fully finished or perfect.

One of the owners drove it to college, after all.

 

Oh I'd drive it...bet Anthony would too...heck maybe they liked it that way.

 

I thought the Auction had a pretty good handful of Vintage Hotrod/Custom showcased...and they had a reserve bid as well...which I get as why would one want to lose...I guess its time to get it out, noticed and straighten those bent pipes out...

 

I think also the fact that it had been locked away and out of the public eye for over 50 years is one factor. Very few people had ever heard of it and from watching the video the only way Foose determined it was a Barris build, prior to talking to the owners, was the Barris badging. It was never one of those, hey whatever happend to that custom 53 Olds Barris built for..................

 

According to "THE STORY" on the Mecham website ...

"The paintwork was highlighted with gold scallops and striping. A number of other custom touches abound, such as the use of trim pieces from a 1957 Mercury and a 1957 Ford, and Barris’ in-house upholstery guru installed a custom-stitched interior."

But it looks like it had that interior when it was yellow. It also had the continental kit berore Barris got his hands on it.

 

I also wonder how much money Foose spent to get it ready for auction.

 

Embellished with the power of the word that sometimes gets skewed...AND noticed. I don't think having Chip look at it was a bad thing...but it was like a quick sprucing for the used car lot at some points...and I guess it was...The owners no doubt paid him well to do that...he was standing there watching those pipes get crushed too...probably swallowed his tongue watching that happen...but low riders scrape shit all the time I'm sure...Its no doubt a slalom course every drive with those that don't have the luxury of up buttons...

 

As for the interior color, about ten years ago a neighbor who dabbled in old cars found a completely original, untouched 53 Buick two door hardtop that was a maroon with white top and the interior was sort of an aqua blue and white. When I first saw it, I thought, who would paint a car maroon when it had that color interior? The factory did. It was the oddest, and ugliest combination I'd ever seen.

 

Probably hand picked by the purchaser...the 50s were pretty colorful in the Automobile...despite the pictures of so many in the mags being black and white...and you know how picky us Hotrod/Custom people can be eh!...blackwalls, whitewalls, too high, too low, Chop it, don't chop it. I know it was the wife's idea...

 

Absolutely. lol