Customizing legend is bringing Batmobile panache to Prius

LOS ANGELES -- He built the Clampetts' jalopy for The Beverly Hillbillies, TV's original Batmobile, the Monkeemobile and KITT, the chatty Trans Am in the first Knight Rider series.

Now auto-customizing legend George Barris, 83, says he's taking a bold voyage into the 21st century: He's trying to give dowdy hybrids like the Toyota Prius his distinctive, flamboyant touch.

Why hybrids? "I love the challenges of doing something different," says Barris, who has redone about six Priuses so far and is working on his latest and greatest.

Hybrids could use a sexier image, he figured. The current model of the Prius is so bulbous that Barris recalls politely telling Toyota executives that it looked tubby and turtle-like.

The latest custom version that he's creating might not pass for a Maserati, but it is definitely sleeker. It has upward tilting doors, flared fenders, a stunning two-tone paint job of metallic gold and orange, yellow-tinted glass, hulking 20-inch rims and panels over the windows to make it look lower and more ferocious.

Progress on the car was far enough along to show it at a major trade show in October. Barris still plans to add a notebook computer, lithium-ion battery kit for 75-mile-per-gallon hybrid performance, an LED lighting system and a pair of rear video cameras that will allow the side mirrors to be removed.

All this will cost more than $100,000, in addition to the more than $20,000 to buy the stock Prius.

"I love taking something that nobody wants to do anything with and make it look better," he says. He's given the Barris treatment over the decades to snowmobiles, boats, golf carts — even bicycles. Hybrids were a natural.

Barris has named this custom Prius the Zimbra, which just happens to also be the name of the Silicon Valley company that its owner, Satish Dharmaraj, co-founded.

"It's gorgeous," says Dharmaraj of the evolving Barris project on his car.

His Saratoga, Calif.-based company is involved in the next generation of e-mail and messaging, and Dharmaraj is a self-described "high-tech nerd."