Who is the creator of the Batmobile, Munster Koach and other iconic star cars?

Barris attended San Juan High School and "rushed to sweep floors at a local body shop as soon as school let out". He resisted his family's desire for him to work at its Greek restaurant in a Sacramento suburb. He moved to Los Angeles after turning 18 to "become part of the emerging teen car culture" opening the "Barris Custom Shop" in Bell, California.

Some early work was for the movies North by Northwest, High School Confidential and "future" scenes in the 1960 film adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. Other Barris-built film cars included a modified Dodge Charger for Thunder Alley, a Plymouth Barracuda for Fireball 500, the futuristic Supervan for a film of the same name, a gadget-filled Mercury station wagon for The Silencers, and a sinister rework of a Lincoln Continental Mark III for The Car.

Besides the Batmobile other television cars built by Barris Kustom Industries include the Munster Koach and casket dragster (the "Drag-U-La") for The Munsters, an Oldsmobile Toronado turned into a roadster used in the first season of Mannix, a 1921 Oldsmobile touring car turned into a truck for The Beverly Hillbillies, the fictional "1928 Porter" for the NBC comedy My Mother the Car, Updated KITTs for later seasons of Knight Rider.

He died on November 5, 2015, in his sleep at his home in Encino, California, at the age of 89. Barris is the subject of the title story in writer Tom Wolfe's first collection of essays The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.