Oh, my dear sweet lord.
For the last couple of days it seems that my luck has been in finding some of George Barris’s most frightening creations. First it was the “Travolta Fever” Pontiac Firebird, complete with it’s twenty cows’ worth of brown leather interior coupled with a Porsche whale-tail and Travolta’s smiling face. Then Fitzgerald decided to enlighten me on the “wedding coach” that Barris built for Burt Renyolds and Loni Anderson’s wedding day, a chimera of a vehicle that can best be described as a poor, unsuspecting International Scout that was beaten, broken down and forced to dress like a Wells Fargo stagecoach. And now, I bring you a Lincoln Mark IV that is so damn awful that it exists purely to remind us of the sins of the 1970s, all of the wretched overkill that was fueled by cheap drugs and the kind of machismo that smelled like Eau Savage cologne and bourbon.
This 1972 Mark IV ended up becoming the vision that Barris had of the “American Rolls-Royce”. Really, George? Are you sincere? Rolls-Royce cars are many things: stately, sophisticated, and relatively unassuming…the quality stands out more than the luxuries do, which might be why over 65% of Rollers ever built are still roadworthy. While the Lincoln was certainly doing well for itself in the early 1970s, it was nowhere near a Rolls. It was long, wide, and powered by a 460 that could pump out 365hp and a tidal wave of torque that was needed to move the nearly 5,000lb behemoth around. A stock ’72 Mark IV looks clean, without the huge railroad tie bumpers, and with every calling card that said that Lee Iacocca had some say in the design: the Rolls-style waterfall grille, the unbelievably plush interior, the ride quality that turned the cabin into a comfortable lounge.
Then Barris came along, and went ballistic with the customization. That pearl paint was reportedly thirty coats’s worth. The interior looks like he bought a rug at a Turkish bazaar and cut it to fit. There’s marble inlays in the dash and door. There’s a TV on a swing-post for the front passenger, and a wet bar for the back seat occupants. The door handles were raided from a home improvement store and the trunk was finished out the same way. The hideaway headlights were traded for lamps and the Continental “hump” on the trunk was covered in leather.
Now, since it’s an eBay find, anyone want to take a guess on how much this car is up for? $47,700. And the even more sickening thing, is that is a nearly 50% price reduction from the last time the car was known to be for sale. Somebody check that wet bar…I need to drink this one out of my memory.
Click here for the eBay listing, as well as more pictures of the Bugazzi!
Is that a Lowrance Depth Finder on the dash?
YUCK,
Its not as bad as the Firebird. I like those 72 lincolns. Change a few things like the weird carpet and that type of junk and I would drive it. I like to see that 70s “technology” in these cars like the TV and original car phones.
Yeah, that interior might be kind of cool if he’d just stuck to a plain brown carpet, used more normal handles, and used the same light-colored leather in place of the marble. If that thing were selling for a more reasonable price, I’d be tempted to do just that, peel off the excess exterior leather (hey, maybe it could be re-used to cover up that marble!) and swap the front end back to a stock one (maybe with some mild touches) and then brag about having a Barris car that I had removed Barris touches from just for some major trolling.
Should I say that would make it less em-Barris-ing to drive? Well, maybe not, since a pun like that would make it clear I already have no sense of shame.
I might get a permaban from BS, but I really dig the carpet.
…. like I said previously
When Barris gets it wrong … good god almighty …. he really gets it wrong !
Just my opinion, but I’m not convinced he ever got it right
The Craigslist price is 49.9. So the reserve is likely not too far above 47.7.
‘Wonder why they would advertise and picture it with at least one out-of-place grille bar…
Because its a fixer upper. Hahaha
The interior is more Home Depot than anything car related.
Hey, just like people who were young kids during the days of the custom vans and street machines with lace paint, there are people who were kids when the pimp mobiles cruised the streets. So, it’s not surprising that the bidding is going up.
Barris has been terribly over rated. He’s had far more horrible vomit inducing failures than successes. The fact he takes credit for other peoples work just adds to the disaster and empty myth that is George Barris.
Seems like it should have a rectangular steering wheel.
FYI – I took these photos and wrote this ad. I left the company in July of this year.
counts customs will be all over this thing. HaHa
I’ve never understood what the interest is with George Barris. I know his impact on tv cars like the Batmobile and Munster cars, but those are only perfect examples of the over the top gaudiness that’s been his trademark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car he built that I thought looked good.
It was all downhill after the Hirohata Merc. Shame how he passes off the works of others as his own.