Barris was credited with helping to define California’s car culture in the 50s and 60s, and also built cars for Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley

George Barris, the legendary custom car builder who created television’s original Batmobile and helped define California’s car culture, has died aged 89.



Barris died at his Los Angeles home with his family by his side, said Edward Lozzi, his longtime publicist and friend. No cause of death was given but he had been in declining health for some time.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Barris pictured in 1966 with the Batmobile. Photograph: AP

Barris customised cars and buses for television shows, movies, and celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Burt Reynolds. He was also a pioneer in designing small, plastic models of those cars.

The models popularised his wildly imaginative vehicles all the more when they were assembled by millions of American youngsters in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

“He was the man who started the American pastime for baby boomers,” Lozzi said.

For decades Barris worked out of a shop in a modest North Hollywood neighbourhood, just down the street from Universal Studios. Passers-by would often be startled to see the Batmobile or another stunning vehicle sitting inside the shop and to meet Barris if they strolled in to check it out.

Barris also worked on The Munster Koach for the 1960s TV show The Munsters, and Black Beauty, the car Bruce Lee used in the TV show, The Green Hornet.

He also customised cars for numerous well-heeled private collectors, Lozzi said, as well as buses for traveling rock musicians.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Barris with the star of the Batman TV series, Adam West, in 2012. Photograph: Alexandra Wyman/Getty Images

Born in Chicago on 20 November 1925, to Greek immigrants James Salapatas and Fanicia Barakaris, who later changed the family name to Barris, George was three when he and his older brother, Sam, moved to Roseville, California, to live with their aunt and uncle after their mother died.

Barris would say years later that they customised their first car as teenagers – a 1925 Buick they were given for helping in the family restaurant. They sold it and used the money to work on another.

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After fully customising a 1936 Ford in high school, Barris formed the Kustom Car Club. The unusual spelling of “custom”, never fully explained, came to be his signature.

The brothers, meanwhile, moved to southern California after World War II and began designing cars for private buyers. Their colourful, sometimes outlandish refurbishing of convertibles, coupes, sedans, hot rods, even lowrider cars soon brought them to the attention of Hollywood.

Their clients came to include Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone and numerous other celebrities and studio executives.

After Sam Barris left the business in the 1950s, George and his wife, Shirley, continued on their own.

His most famous creations, such as the Ala Kart and the Hirohata Merc, remain instantly recognisable on the car collector circuit to this day.

The most famous of all, the Batmobile, was built from a refurbished 1955 Lincoln Futura, and sold at auction two years ago for $4.2m.