A fiberglass door is a door panel made from a lightweight composite material. It’s common in custom builds because it’s easier to shape than metal, but it needs careful fitting and finishing.
Silicon bronze is a brazing/welding filler alloy commonly used to join metals with good corrosion resistance. In fabrication contexts, it’s often chosen when you want strong joints and reliable performance, especially on mixed or tricky materials.
Land Rover is a car company. Here, the story is that people at Land Rover weren’t thrilled about using an American-made engine idea.
Car
Golden Sahara One
The Golden Sahara One is a famous custom car tied to George Barris. It’s remembered for its wild, luxury-looking styling—especially the gold trim and the unusual shape of the windows.
Car
Golden Sahara Two
The Golden Sahara Two is basically the next version of the Golden Sahara custom car. The hosts are comparing it to the original and talking about how the two are related.
“24 karat gold trim” means the gold used for the decorative parts is extremely pure. It’s basically the most “real gold” look you can get on a car’s exterior trim.
The 1967 Toronado is an Oldsmobile model that the hosts are using as the starting point for a custom build. They’re also talking about how the car’s powertrain is usually arranged, like where the torque converter sits.
A torque converter is part of an automatic transmission that helps the engine smoothly move the car, especially from a stop. It’s like a fluid “power transfer” device between the engine and the rest of the drivetrain.
The Ford Fairlane is an older Ford car model that was made in the mid-size category. The podcast mentions using seats from a Thunderbird in a Fairlane, which means someone changed the interior to match a different style or comfort. It’s discussed because classic cars are often modified like this.
Sequential taillights are brake/turn lights that light up in a sequence, like a moving pattern. It’s a styling feature that makes the car’s rear signals look more dramatic.
The Ford Mustang is a sports car made by Ford, usually offered as a coupe or convertible. The “sequential” taillights are lights that turn on in a moving pattern rather than all at once. People talk about these features because they’re part of what makes the car look and feel special.
Here, “power” means the rear window moves with a motor (powered by electricity). So you don’t have to crank it by hand.
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Rose EP47: Barks like a seal for your validation We're here to honk the horn.
Rose EP47: nice of him. Um, Joe Rismo and I got together on Friday, and we, uh, welded and dressed a corner on the C-Cab project,
It's not the, not an exact for, you know, piece for piece, but we're gonna follow the cues. So, um, they, all the flanges we will have to add to them. If you don't know what that means, that's, you know ... The flange is where the panel turns and forms what, in a car with doors, would be called a door jamb. But we don't have doors. It's a C-Cab. You just, it's just an opening. You just step in.
Uh, we didn't mention the car. He was gonna pick my brain about something for his fiberglass door for his van. And he's gotta get some argon. He's got some TIG welding to do at home for his trike. I gave him some silicon bronze, and, uh, I broke a water pump for him to practice welding a little cast iron.
Emily EP47: it is. Yeah. Yeah. Let's count that one. RIP.
Rose EP47: only are we getting a toilet made, we're getting a whole bathroom made.
We, we're, we got a lot of body to build, so- Emily EP47: 哼。 No, Emily EP47: Nice Wow, that's very cool. Yeah
Emily EP47: Sorry.
Rose EP47: Well, that's supposedly the story. You know, what we talked about was that when the guy from Land Rover was over here and saw one of those motors, and then, uh, you know, it all came together. And the, like, supposedly the people back at Land Rover kind of groaned, that they were like, "Ugh, we're gonna build an American engine?" They wanna do their own thing
Rose EP47: what's funny is that it's a '67 X Emily EP47: Yeah.
Rose EP47: mine." Yeah. And it's like, well, sorta.
Rose EP47: Yeah, Gene doesn't like that Emily EP47: Uh, I think he wanted to be different, and I think it came from his, um... They started a car club called the Kustoms Car Club, and then that was supposedly the first use known of the K in Kustoms. I think he maybe he just liked to play around with spelling, and what I really like about that is, um, uh, as everybody may know, we spell crush with a K, and I kinda did that because of, like, custom.
But I read that and I was like, "Oh, well that's pretty cool. Now at least I know where that came from," instead of me just kinda doing it on a whim. Um, yeah. I thought that was interesting. When he was in high school, he worked at-- His parents owned a, uh... I think he was Greek. I think they owned a Greek restaurant.
Um, where were they? He was in California. I'm just not sure exactly- I think it was
It wasn't like a brand new car. Um, but it wasn't the '20s, it was like in the '40s that he was a teenager.
But I mean, they th- they both did work for sure. Uh, 'cause I r- I have old little books where like George is doing it. Uh, but Sam, Sam was an instrumental part of the whole thing. Um, and I think people, I think people acknowledge maybe that Sam was better with the tools than George perhaps. But George is the, George is the promo guy and I think a, you know, a big time idea guy. But that's it. I don't...
Rose EP47: I mean, I should say from my experience, like I knew who George was and went to George's shop in 2011 and got a tour through Junior Samet, who owned the Little Red Record for a while, and also owned, you know, and Ed Roth, he owned the Mega Cycle or Mega Hauler. Um, and it was an awesome tour, and that was how I met Brett, you know, where I talked about us coming back later to see the Batmobile and that we were able to, you know, Brett hung out with us and made some time, uh, to give us a really nice day.
Rose EP47: So that's just my, that's just my perspective. Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna seem like, "Oh, I don't care about George." Like-
Emily EP47: Yeah, I would like to... Maybe there, there might be like a biography out there about him or something. I don't know. I didn't dig
Emily EP47: Okay. So he customized that
Emily EP47: And he made it. They had to build it in 14 days.
Gene never drank or smoked his whole life. Yeah. And my grandpa hated this other guy in town that was like... He was like, you know, said he sold dope, you know? So I just feel like a lot of old guys are just like, "I didn't mess with that dope," you know? Whatever. I
Emily EP47: So maybe we read two different things. I mean, I got this off of, I can't remember what website it was, but I got this off of one specific website.
Emily EP47: So it, it doesn't need to be perfect. Is it gonna catch it on camera? Probably not. Um, something I thought was interesting that I read, this could be true or not, but he retained the ownership of said vehicle, and he sold it for $4,620,000 in 2014
Rose EP47: no. Forget who has it
Yeah. Of course, they didn't... I don't think they arrested her because she's a white lady in LA who was exceedingly rich.
Emily EP47: No, because the Golden Sahara One became the Golden Sahara Two Um, okay. Yeah, I, I'm trying to see shots of the, of the original Golden Sahara I just can't tell what the hell I'm looking at I think I'm seeing it. It's wild. But it looks like it has a cartoon face
Rose EP47: Yeah Wow. Uh, yeah. Awesome. Well, that's pretty wild. Okay, now that I have a visual. Thanks. Sorry. Now that
most like a fountain shape. Um, and the stance of the car is just like a little bit higher in the front and just lower in the back. It's real sleek. And then it has that, um, the back window is just a big dome, and it ends in a widow pe- widow's peak. That's also 24 karat gold- Mm ... trim. Um, and it was-- So according to Wikipedia, the manufacturer is Jim Street
Emily EP47: Yes, Gonzacas. Um, and then it says designer was George Barris, but what's funny about this car is it is not on Barris' website
Rose EP47: car, I guess They usually are Emily EP47: Yeah, they did. Uh, unfortunately, it's just the tire of one future car, and that is the Golden Sahara too.
Yeah. So he went back old school, got some fishies
So we took it and scraped the scales off the belly and put it in a jar and took it back to the shop and mixed it in with a natural cellulose clear and toner lacquers, and then I based it in a very dull white and then sprayed that over it, and it just came out really pearly gold. The only problem was it was very hard to smell it because it smelled like a fish."
Rose EP47: Hmm. Snazzy
Emily EP47: I think it was in one track, but does it matter? You're on the road, you're recording
Emily EP47: And it would... Yeah. Okay. So maybe he was copying a little bit
Emily EP47: building it new. No, exactly. According to Wiki, it's displayed at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, California. Um, what is always interesting to me about these kinds of things is that you have this car that this guy spent this inordinate amount of money on, and it toured the country, and it was, like, ultra, ultra famous, and then it just kinda gets put away to rot
Yeah. At least they held onto it. I mean, it was really rough when they pulled it out.
Rose EP47: Yeah, it's all Barris. We planned it that way, folks. I mean, that was just the goal the whole time. But we've had a few friends write us and say, "You should do-- You should talk about the 67 X," which is a Toronado,
Rose EP47: Yeah, it's kinda wacky. , I'm assuming the chain and gear are one-to-one, 'cause normally you've got the torque converter right on the back of the engine. That's my assumption. Um, anyway, there was a gas company, Esso, Imperial Oil, and they wanted to build a car to celebrate, uh, the centennial for Canada
Rose EP47: Red Vines and, uh, chocolate that looks like poop. Uh, all these other things which are gonna call back to another episode, which we just did, that you loved. So they were like, "Hey, we-- George, Georgie boy, we saw the Batmobile.
Rose EP47: There's another couple that has it in Palm Springs, and then this other guy is Canadian. And his family has had it, you know, for a long time. And anyway, the pictures, all the rear quarter work looks like metal, but all the front end work is fiberglass. The deck lid is fiberglass. The big sail panels are fiberglass, the fastback look, basically. This was not really, uh, detailed in the discussion, but it, to me, from what I saw, they most likely did the front in fiberglass so that they could take a mold and make all four fronts in one shot.
I don't know. That's what it looks like, and if I were in George's position and I had to build four of these, that's probably what I would've done. But maybe, f- I don't know. I can't speak to, like, how they structured it. I will say in the videos that I watched, uh, with like I watched, uh, My Classic Car with like Wayne Carini, and then I watched this other one with a super obnoxious guy, and everybody liked to point out the like aluminum mud flaps 'cause they like sculpted the, the wheel arches and stuff.
They look like Thunderbird seats, but they're, you know, Fairlane Thunderbird seats, and the guy's sitting backwards and he's obsessed. But there's like a cooler, and then there's like a wood drop-down, like table for... There's like ... It's like a L-shaped bench in the back, and then there's one seat that's tucked in, and there's like a singular seat.
And, um, the lights in the back are sequential Mustang taillights. There's a lot of cool features about the car, but then you just like pop the hood and it's basically just stock Toronado. You know, it's just a stock blue engine and it's all black and nothing really to write home about. And the owner of one of the cars was like, "Yeah, there's a lot of rivets and silicone and stuff just like holding things together." But the guy was like, "So can we like, can we go drive it? Is it okay?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure.
Rose EP47: like, it's like a Monte Carlo's quarter panel on steroids. Like a '70 Monte on steroids. Like it really arches up, and then it does it in the front as well.
The guy in Palm Springs, his is like a burnt orange/burgundy as referenced by the other owner. Uh, I thought it just looked like burnt orange. But the, the guy that all the videos are of, the, he's got the gold one or one of the gold ones. It's a cool color. I like the orange one best myself. But, uh, I'm trying to think what else was significant about... I mean, like I said, there's chrome everywhere, the headliner, um, is, you know, everything's made... The, the extra window in the back is cool 'cause the back windows are power,
Rose EP47: George, did a bunch of vans, so like he knew, you know. It's the swivel seat and everything. I mean, he was, he was like, "Yeah, I've been there. I've done this." Like he, he knew exactly what to
Rose EP47: So I mean, yeah, he's-- Like I said, uh, George was the name I knew. I just wound up linked to Gene and got to live in Gene's world. But like, yeah, I always, I always thought the Barris, all the Barris stuff was super cool.
Emily EP47: Mm-hmm. Hey, thanks for listening too,
About this episode
Hosts dig into Barris-linked custom fabrication, starting with a “C-Cab” build where they add flanges to shape an opening like a door jamb, and get into practical welding details like needing argon for TIG work. The conversation then pivots to the Golden Sahara’s look—24 karat gold trim and a mix of metal-like rear work with fiberglass front-end and deck lid pieces. They also reference a 1967 Toronado-based custom and how torque converter placement typically works.
