A few years ago, I bought a Stewart Warner "Hollywood" gauge panel from a well-known north eastern hot rod parts and bullshit supplier. The panel was complete and obviously snipped out of a car, with stumps of wires hanging off the gauges. The dealer said that the panel was from a Barris built '57 Pontiac custom, a car that had a short show career around 1960 or so and was scrapped out because it was ugly, deteriorating, and of an obsolete customizing genre. Was there such a car? I have no memories of such and haven't found any traces in my collections or recollections. If there was such a car, surely this is the place to find out something!
There's a BIG difference between "Barris Built" and "Barris worked on". I've met many people that legitimately had Barris do one or two things on a car that was not historically documented. But I've never seen anything on a "Barris built" '57 Pontiac.
BTTT No one has seen a Barris related '57 Pontiac??? My poor gauge panel is lacking in provenance? Oh well, it will go into the museum of nearly authentic memorabilia, right between Von Dutch's lunchbox and Smokey Yunick's gas turbine powered rotary nose hair clipper.
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