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ZZR
This spy-spoof teenage agent rod was one of the wildest creations of George Barris's, for producer Mr. Dave Hammond of Universal Studios. For the 800 horsepower there are two 440 cubic inch Buick engines mounted in tandem with an Ansen shift-locked transmission. M/T tires are mounted on far 12" racing Trans-American wheels for more traction on the beaches. Hilborn injectors add more horsepower to the engines. A Cal-Automotive kick channeled is mounted on rectangular frames with deal radiators. There is a complete arsenal in the back with guns, rifles, tear gas, hand grenades, plus flame throwers from rear fenders and bullets out of the front fenders. Body grabbing seat and chin-knocking rockers. |
 Click image above to see a close-up |
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Dave's comments: Another very cool rod by Barris. Trunk contains it's own arsenal including telescopic machine gun, tar squirter and feather blow gun, and skid juice spreader (I'm not making this up.) I saw the movie "Out of Sight" on cable and it was the most inane ridiculous surfer spoof I've ever seen. And I was only watching the ZZR car! The movie starred Karen Jensen and Robert Pine. A quick summary: A spy's butler plans to follow in his employer's footsteps by tackling the case of a mad scientist at the beach. Show Rod Rally fan Steve Prange has an interesting observation about this kit and its relation to another AMT showrod kit from 1969--the Firebug: "One of my all time favorite Show Cars has always been the ZZR designed by George Barris for the spy spoof film, "Out Of Sight", which I FINALLY found a copy of after searching for many years. Those of you familiar with the car would agree that the phrase "out of sight" just about describes the far-out twin engined monstrosity. I was fortunate enough to have had 2 copies of this kit, one as a kid when it was first released and one not too terribly long ago as an adult. I built the one as a kid, never had a chance to do the one as an adult. One day at a swap meet, I forget where, I saw a show car kit that strongly resembled the ZZR but had a fire department related theme, it was called the "Fire Bug". Again lucky enough to purchase it, it shared many components with the ZZR. The body. frame and engines were actually the identical parts from the ZZR but there were other differences that are obvious when you look at the box art. Unfortunately both the adult owned ZZR and the Fire Bug went the way of eBay to help in a financial crunch, but I'm always on the lookout for others." Steve Prange |
unbuilt |