The Red Foxx Lil Red Wrecker...was originally called The Turnpike Hauler and was designed and built by Bob Resiner and Jay Ohrberg in 1970. Basically an art car made for display only, it was truly "all show, no go". In 1974 it was acquired by George Barris, who painted it red and renamed it Lil' Redd Wrecker
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Barris had a habit of doing that, he also claimed he created the Monkeemobile with Dean Jeffries, where Jeffries created it alone. Barris mearely bought the original, displayed it at 'Cars of the Stars' and also created a replica. Showman or liar?
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of stuff attributed to Barris... that I've seen others made. The Porter in My Mother The Car was Norm Grabowski, and Barris is often just the generic answer when uninformed people need to just label some car with a maker
DeleteFrom the story I heard, Grabowski bought an unfinished T hotrod, added a few bits and bobs to give an older appearance... when the series went into production Barris built a prop/stunt version (with hidden driver) second car, which was used for stunts and for those times when a second Porter was needed....
DeleteBarris also did that with the General Lee, and the one closer to my garage, Herbie the Love Bug. The Herbie cars were built for the most part in house at Disney Studios.
ReplyDeleteI read an interview once where Barris said it was easier for him to tell people that he built this car or that car rather than to let them down by saying he didn't build it. I guess that helped him sleep at night.
Was there ANY show car Barris didn't take credit for? *sigh*
ReplyDeleteThe Turnpike Hauler was built by Dick Dean from an Ed Newton design
ReplyDeleteThere's a long line of egos claiming to have "built" show cars.
ReplyDeleteThe Turnpike Hauler wasn't built by Reisner, Ohberg, or Barris.
It was designed by Ed Newton and fabrication was carried out by Dan Woods. I think Reisner actually comissioned it and signed the checks.
It was also fully functional according to an interview I read with Woods in an old british Custom Car magazine. He recalled that it was an exception as most of the cars they churned out were static displays with empty engine blocks!
I was member 5058 in the ISCA (International Show Car Association) for many years with a street driven daily 69 Barracuda fastback and there were rules at those shows that if a vehicle was protested against for not being "real or functional" they had a designated amount of time to get it started (unless it was on a turntable) move forward , backward, turn right, turn left and stop under it's own power. And to indicate it had "passed the protest" a small sticker was placed on one of the headlights. So the comment about empty engine blocks would not allowed at an ISCA show, even for a trailer queen!
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