Lives in the Fast Lane
John DeLorean and George Barris were both born in 1925 and became trailblazers in the automotive world, though they are remembered for sharply contrasting reasons.
As this is the 100th issue of The Rake, it seemed appropriate to profile characters from the car industry who were born exactly a century ago — and the duo we alighted upon could scarcely have been more different...
John DeLorean
Tall, handsome and always impeccably attired, John Z. (for Zacharay) DeLorean was the consummate rake — but also what the comic actor Terry-Thomas would certainly have referred to as “an absolute bounder”.
DeLorean was bornin the U.S. to a Romanian émigré foundry worker and an Austrian mother. His looks were matched by a level of intelligence that enabled him to secure a master’s degree in engineering from the Chrysler Institute before he helped to revive the dusty Packard marque during the early 1950s.
Moving to General Motors, he created the smash-hit Pontiac Tempest, launched the legendary GTO muscle car, and, aged 40, was promoted to become General Motors’ youngest ever vice-president. But as is often the case with brilliant minds and oversized egos, DeLorean got restless.
Admitting to not being a team player, he embarked on a mission to create his own car marque, and decided the best way of doing so was by using other people’s money.
And lots of it.
Having persuaded stars such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Johnny Carson to chip in (the latter to the tune of $1.5m), DeLorean wheedled a design out of the Italian maestro Giorgetto Giugiaro and squeezed $97m from the gullible British government, enabling production to get underway in 1978.
DeLorean pulled it off with the promise of bringing employment and prosperity to terrorism-plagued Northern Ireland by building “the ethical sports car for the bachelor who’s made it” in the Belfast suburb of Dunmurry. High unemployment in the area ensured there was no shortage of applicants for the well-paid jobs at the gleaming new factory — but few of those DeLorean took on had any experience of motor manufacture.
The $25,000 DMC-12 car they were tasked with building featured Giugiaro’s now-celebrated gullwing body in brushed stainless steel, underpinnings, suspension worked on by the Lotus founder Colin Chapman, and a decidedly unglamorous Peugeot/ Renault engine mounted at the back. The interior had high-tech pretensions with its tilting, telescopic steering column, complex ventilation system and multi-position climate control.
But those gullwing doors proved problematic (Carson once became locked inside a DMC-12): they were prone to leaks and fitted with gas- filled struts designed to hold them open but which had a habit of collapsing without notice.
Despite the car’s failings, 9,200 DMC-12s wheezed off the production line before the loss-making company closed down in 1982, shortly after DeLorean was caught in an F.B.I. sting agreeing to bankroll a fictitious operation to smuggle cocaine worth $24m.
He was acquitted two years later on the basis of entrapment, and, despite being suspected of committing fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion against the governments of Britain, Switzerland and the U.S., he always succeeded in avoiding conviction. But DeLorean didn’t take only countries for a ride — he also duped those who had agreed to help him in his venture, including Chapman, whose signature he practised forging. None of the above, however, prevented DeLorean from hanging on to a $9m Manhattan apartment and a $4m New Jersey estate for years after the collapse of his eponymous car marque. It wasn’t until 1999 that he declared personal bankruptcy.
The irony, of course, is that the DMC-12 had by then become one of the most recognisable cars in the world thanks to its starring role in 1985’s Back to the Future. Imagine how much more DeLorean might have blagged had he known that was going to happen...
John DeLorean. Born: January 6, 1925; died: March 19, 2005.
The irony is that the DMC became one of the world’s most recognisable cars due to its role in Back to the Future.
George Barris
You may not recognise the name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his ingenious work — even if it was just in the form of the Batmobile from the original television series.
But that was only one example of George Barris’s genius as the coolest Californian car customiser of his generation.
Barris was born in Chicago to Greek immigrant parents. His mother died when he was a toddler, at which point he and his brother, Sam, were shipped off to Roseville, California, to live with their uncle. Growing up as the west-coast car scene was emerging, Barris showed a fascination with automobiles from an early age, and by seven was building balsa-wood models of wild motors conjured from his imagination.
By the time he was 13, Barris and his brother had restored a real car — a 1925 Buick — while adding custom touches that showed he wasn’t pursuing just a career but his vocation.
Earning money as a sweeper-upper in auto shops after school, Barris’s natural talent was soon recognised, and he was put to work repairing vehicles for customers. At the age of 18 he struck out for Los Angeles, where cool-looking cars were becoming an intrinsic part of teenage life.
The precocious Barris soon outshone them all with his 1936 Ford Roadster, which he had streamlined by removing the running boards and door handles — replacing the latter with electrically operated openers. Soon, others were calling on Barris’s considerable skills, leading him and his brother to open their own auto shop in Compton, which they called Barris Kustom, using a ‘k’ rather than a ‘c’ because they were Greek. It stuck, and ‘kustom kulture’ became a nationally recognised term for the type of cars Barris created, often sporting features such as lowered suspension, ‘bubble’ roofs, ‘Frenched’ lights set into the bodywork, and wild colour schemes. He was said to have once mixed sardine scales with paint to create a simple metallic finish.
But it was in 1948 that Barris got his big break, having been invited by automotive impresario Robert Petersen to exhibit a Buick at L.A.’s first custom car show. Hollywood came and Hollywood saw — and soon the young genius was transforming cars for stars such as Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra and the flamboyant pianist Liberace, for whom he trimmed-out a Cadillac with keyboard-style upholstery and a trademark candelabra.
Exposure on small and large screens followed when Barris was commissioned to build outlandish vehicles used in programmes such as The Addams Family and The Beverly Hillbillies before, in 1965, he was asked to envision a car suitable for television’s most popular superhero, Batman. Based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura, Barris made the legendary Batmobile in five versions, variously for filming, stunts and promotional use. Barris kept hold of the original until 2013, when he sold it at a Barrett Jackson auction for $4.2m.
His personal transport in later life took the form of a Toyota Prius, a model some say is the world’s most boring car. Inevitably, Barris’s was a little different: he fitted it with gullwing doors and painted it metallic gold with bright green accents.
What else would you expect of the Kustom King?
George Barris. Born: November 20, 1925; died: November 5, 2015.
