Photo by Bob Fowler/News Sentinel
Car customizer George Barris, left, and Charlie Moore, one of the owners of the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg, take care of business on June 24, 2010, in front of the Mercedes Benz once owned and driven by pop star Michael Jackson, who died a year ago June 25.
Photo by Bob Fowler/News Sentinel
Car customizer George Barris, left, and Charlie Moore, one of the owners of the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg, take care of business on June 24, 2010, in front of the Mercedes Benz once owned and driven by pop star Michael Jackson, who died a year ago June 25.
George Barris, 'The King of Kustom Cars' and Hollywood man-about-town, has been palling around with the likes of Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Elton John, John Wayne, Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Hugh Hefner and Michael Jackson for the past 50 or so years. This weekend, he's bringing Hollywood to the Smokies.
As the 'kustomizer' of Michael Jackson's 1985 Mercedes 500 SEL, currently on display at Hollywood Star Cars in Gatlinburg, George Barris will be meeting and greeting and signing autographs Friday and Saturday at Hollywood Star Cars, in tribute to Michael Jackson, who died one year ago Friday.
Barris has customized several cars for the Jackson family and counts Michael, Jermaine and Jackie among his favorite customers. The Benz on display at the Gatlinburg attraction is one heck of a sweet ride, from the $10,000 stereo system to the embossed 'MJ' seal on the driver side rear window, to Jackson's song 'Smooth Criminal' blasting out of the stereo system as Barris cruised around Knoxville on Thursday. The license plate reads 'TKS (heart) MKL,' or 'Thanks Michael,' a tribute to the late pop star from the aunt who cared for the car before Charlie Moore (owner of Hollywood Star Cars) purchased it at auction to bring to Gatlinburg.
Jackson was the first owner of the 1985 Mercedes Benz 500 SEL and the car is rare and collectible in its own right. Mercedes hadn't intended the model for the American market, and it was imported on a very limited basis. Jackson purchased the vehicle for use at his Neverland estate, where he lived from the 1980s until 2005. Jackson later gave the Mercedes to his aunt for her birthday.
Barris fondly remembers the singer hanging around his car shop. 'The first time he brought the Mercedes in after we built it, he came up to me and he says, ‘George. George, my car's been hurt.' In that voice of his he had, soft,' Barris reminisces.
'I said, ‘No problem, Michael. I fix cars.' So he leaves the shop and comes back after about an hour. He's been to the drugstore, and he's got a box of Band-Aids. Before I can ask him what's going on, he's quietly walking around that car, putting a Band-Aid on every little nick and scratch,' Barris laughs and exclaims. 'He was a funny one, a really good guy, too. And I went around and fixed everything underneath each one of those Band-Aids.'
Barris also customized a limousine for Michael Jackson with 250 separate clocks installed, so he could 'see what time it was wherever he looked.'
Jackson's 1985 Mercedes 500 SEL is on display at Hollywood Star Cars along with several other vehicles built by Barris, such as The Batmobile, The "Ghostbusters'' Ecto-1, "The Munsters'' Dragula, General Lee from "The Dukes of Hazzard," the "Beverly Hillbillies'' jalopy, the Flintmobile from "Flintstones," and the "Knight Rider" Pontiac Trans Am.
Barris will be at Hollywood Star Cars, 914 Parkway in Gatlinburg, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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