Found this pic of the Ecto-1A signed by “the creator” George Barris.
Also just found this on his wikipedia listing:
Law Suit
Universal Studios issued a cease and desist order against Barris for taking credit for the Back to the Future car in May 2007. “George Barris had absolutely nothing to do with the design or construction of the DeLorean time travel vehicle,” said Bob Gale, who was a writer and producer on the film. “The DeLorean was designed on paper by Ron Cobb and Andrew Probert, and it was built under the supervision of special effects supervisor Kevin Pike and construction coordinator Michael Scheffe.” Barris has also been seen on his DVD series taking credit for several other movie cars such as the Ecto-1 and the movie Batmobile
Allright, so… one of my roommates is one of those guys who doesn’t really do much, and tends to justify his existence with the things he owns. He goes to work, hangs out with his girlfriend, and watches pirated episodes of Smallville and Heroes, and really nothing else. He made a ghostbuster uniform with us but for unknown reasons lost interest and never went to events with us. He loves to collect posters and props and little “authentic” things, sort of a snobbish artsy guy who buys ‘organic’ cheetos from Whole Foods, you know the kind of person.
When we started building my ecto, he bought one of the 1:24 (or whatever) scale die-cast ectos, and a picture of the 1A ‘autographed by the guy who designed it.’ He made a big deal out of it, putting it in a little silver and glass frame and put it on the mantle.
The picture was grainy and really wasn’t useful in terms of helping build our car, you couldn’t REALLY make out anything in the photo as far as prop-building goes, so I never paid too much attention to it.
Seeing this thread, I went and grabbed the picture from his room and lo-and-behold… it’s signed by George Barris. Same exact photo, but signed with red ink.
I really hope all of Georges victims pop up with a lawsuit as well. I can’t imagine him getting out of this one. I’d love to see all the evidence brought up against him. He’s taken credit for every movie car made for the last 40 years.
I was sitting, looking at this autographed photo, and it just blows me away how a person could sign stuff like that, how blatantly dishonest it is.
I mean, people talk about how he’s just blowing smoke for attention, or retarded, or all that… but to put your name on something you DID NOT CREATE… willingly, over and over and over on copies of pictures that will be sold for profit… it’s so mind-bogglingly dishonest.
It’s plagiarism on such a level that he should not only be given C&D orders, but he should be sued for everything he’s got.
It’s like me signing batman cowls and selling them… unreal.
He would have had to have known what he was doing unless he’s completely senile and even if he is, its still no excuse. I really feel bad for people who have bought his cars with his certificate of authenticity stating it was one of 5 cars used in the movie etc etc etc.
Register with IMDB, and submit the correction that George Barris had nothing to do with the car. Then add “Steven Dane” or “Stephen Dane” as the car designer.
While you are at it… submit the correction that the movie is called “Ghostbusters” and not “Ghost Busters”.
There are other cars he did this with as well not mentioned.
Knight Rider,General Lee, the Monkee’s car, and the list goes on.
He also signed a car in which he had nothing to do with, the car fromTaxi, he signed the hood.
So technically given the fact he took credit for Back to the future and Knight Rider, thats 2 universal cars. He says though he gave credit where it was due and never acted or tried to claim credit for making the cars, yeah right.
