The dune buggy craze was sweeping the nation in the late '60s, when legendary customizer George Barris was asked by a customer to build a personalized version. Barris was an astute businessman, one of the few custom car builders to earn serious bucks for his artistry.
He had made his reputation building custom cars such as the Hirohata Mercury and the Ala Kart that graced the covers of many hot rod magazines. He then found fame as a car builder for Hollywood stars who wanted to drive something certain to be noticed. Sonny and Cher and many other celebrities had Barris brew them up something wild. He parlayed his Hollywood connections into projects for movies and television shows, for which he designed such classics as the original Batmobile. He sensed an opportunity to make money from the buggy fad and came up with both a unique design and a novel business plan.
The Barris T-Buggy followed the typical dune buggy formula of a shortened VW floorpan covered with a simple fiberglass body. From there things got a little weird. It had a shovel nose that was capped by a short chrome-plated grille intended to mimic classic cars of the Ford Model T era. The fenders were also squared off to resemble running boards. On top of all this was ladled a host of custom trim items like hood ornaments, oversized dummy hood straps, and huge headlight housings that resembled old carbide lamps. Heavy-duty bumpers were fabricated from steel strap and square tubing to provide at least rudimentary protection for the metalflake-impregnated fiberglass body. The rear bumper held a spare tire in a vertical mount, and the roadster featured a small, hinged trunk.
There were two basic body styles. The four-seat T-Roadster looked much like a normal dune buggy from a distance, but the T-Pickup panel truck had an enclosed box cab that allowed the buggy to be used as a two-seat promotional delivery truck for small businesses. Both buggies rode on an 80-inch wheelbase and could be built on a shortened VW pan or on a rectangular steel tube frame sold by Barris. The frame could be ordered to take Corvair or VW engines and suspension or any combination thereof (like a VW frontend with a Corvair engine and rear suspension). Barris later added a third design, a two-seater called the "Fun Buggy."
Bugging the Dealers
Barris analyzed the way buggies were being sold and felt there had to be a better way. One of the problems with selling kit bodies was the expense of shipping them across the country, so Barris decided to license manufacturing plants in every state that could build kits on site with molds purchased from Barris' company. These plants would sell their kits through Barris Sport Centers, retail outlets in major markets that would assemble kits as well as sell Barris custom parts for other buggies and miniature kits of Barris cars; he offered "antique" headlights and trim, as well as seats, bumpers, wheels, and instruments.
There were plans for 50 manufacturing plants, but only a few were licensed at around $25,000 each. There were more Sport Centers opened, as the franchise fee was about half as much. They operated in California, Tennessee, Washington, and Florida in 1970. The manufacturing plant personnel were trained at Barris' headquarters to lay up the bodies with a chopper gun.
The kits were supposed to be sold starting at $440, but the franchise operation never progressed to the numbers envisioned. The project was dropped around 1971, leaving only an AMT model car (which is still available) as a memento. The Barris buggies are very rare these days, but worth looking for. Few of us have the bucks for an original Barris custom, but his buggies show hints of his style, recalling elements of the movie and TV cars. The Barris buggies are a nostalgic slice of Americana worth preserving.