Re: [DML] George Barris

[Bob Brandys <BobB@xxxx>]

Randy,

I have had a run in with George Barris last year.. He tried to rent my 
car and claim that it was the original BTTF car. Supposedly, he claims 
he bought one of Jay Orbergs original cars and it caught fire and was 
destroyed. When I told him that I would not participate in fraud, he 
threatened to tell Universal studios about my car. I told him, go 
ahead, they already know about my car! He hung up at that point.

Virtually, all of the cars Barris claims he has are actually other 
peoples cars. e.g.. the Ghost Buster car is owned by a guy in upstate 
NY. The Monkey, was built by a guy in Penn. the new bat mobile is 
owned by a guy in OK. His "General Lee" car at Volo has no interior and 
is a fake.

George gets away with doing this because he buys licenses from the movie 
studies for $20,000 per year to advertise their movie cars. The studios 
don't really care where the cars come from or even if they are original, 
it is publicity they want and Barris does the advertising. This is why 
Barris gets away making the claims that he does.

However, his fakery recently caught up with him in Florida. A car 
museum closed in Orlando and sold off the cars that were there. One of 
them was a "Barris -original Batmobile" A guy bought the car for 
$110,000 thinking is was the original Turned out to have a 1972 Torino 
frame underneath so it could not have been the original car from the 
1966 series. He sued the auction house, the car museum owner and Barris. 

Barris gave the guy his money back and the guy even got to keep the car. 
Barris claims that he never said it was the original Batmobile - just a 
Batmobile. However, the advertisements at the Car museum claimed it was 
the original batmobile. 

97 Delorean Time Machine - Not the Back to the Future Original Movie Car.!