Petersen Cars + Coffee / The Emperor from Barris Kustom

The Emperor - World Famous Hot Rod
Built by George Barris for Chuck Krikorian

The History:
Chuck Krikorian’s fully customized 1929 Ford Model A Roadster, is easily one of the most recognizable historic show cars in existence. Krikorian was a teenager growing up in Fresno, California, in the late ‘50s when he started building a drag roadster out of a ’29 Ford Model A Roadster body, ’31 Ford Model A frame rails and a 1957 Cadillac 365 CI V-8 that had been turned into a Hot Rodded 406 CI engine. Not long after he finished modifying and chroming the frame, Krikorian’s brother-in-law Richard Peters and his friend Blackie Gejeian convinced him to turn his dragster project into a show car. Peters owned the “Ala Kart” show car and would win the Oakland Roadster Show’s America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award in 1958 and 1959, while Blackie had tied for the award in 1955 with his own “Shish Kabob Special”; the two were persuasive enough that Krikorian soon shipped his project car to none other than George Barris and his Barris Kustoms in Lynwood, California, to finish. The car’s body would be channeled 8 inches over the chromed frame, and the dramatically customized grille shell and headlight bezel frame that would become the car’s signature feature was fabricated; modified motorcycle fenders were molded and fitted over the wheels and tires, Eddie Martinez designed and created the interior, the big Cadillac V-8 was show-dressed and topped with six chromed Stromberg 97 carburetors, and the car’s red and white paint scheme was laid down in time for the 1960 Oakland Roadster Show. The Emperor won the AMBR award that year, just before the car suffered damage to its original paint. That damage to its paint facilitated its second—and last—repaint by none other than famed custom painter Junior Conway. The other major modification to the original AMBR-winning car was an engine rebuild after Blackie ran the car at Kingdon Dragstrip to 106 MPH, set the Street Roadster class record. Soon after, Krikorian put the car into long-term storage, selling its original chromed reverse wheels and whitewall tires in the process. Blackie was able to purchase the car directly from Krikorian 20-plus years later, and it’s been in his and his family’s possession ever since. The car’s original wheels and tires had been replaced with wider, chromed steel wheels and raised white-letter tires, but the paint is still Conway’s original lacquer and the chrome is still the original finish that helped Krikorian win top Oakland Roadster Show honors in 1960. The original, custom motorcycle fenders proved too delicate to keep on the car, but it remains largely in the same condition it came out of the Barris shop nearly 60 years ago. The car has appeared in countless magazines, show catalogs and coffee table books, along with on the July 1960 cover of “Hot Rod,” the cover of “Barris Kustoms of the 1950s,” the cover of “Hot Rod Milestones,” and it has been the subject of several Johnny Lightning scale model toy editions. “This is one of the most fabulous cars I’ve ever come across,” Blackie once said. “It was painted back in the early part of 1959 and it’s still the same paint!”

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