THE DRAG-U-LA: How a Back-Door Coffin Deal Built TV's Most Iconic Dragster
In 1965, George Barris's team faced an impossible problem: California law prohibited selling coffins without death certificates. They needed one anyway—to build a fully functional drag racer for a single episode of The Munsters.
The solution? A cash deal, a coffin left outside a funeral home's back door, and a nighttime pickup that launched one of the most influential custom car builds in television history.
This documentary explores the complete story behind the DRAG-U-LA—from Tom Daniel's original design to the engineering challenges of mounting a 350-horsepower Ford V8 inside a fiberglass burial casket. We examine the business model that transformed a $15,000 production expense into decades of merchandising revenue, and trace the vehicle's influence from 1960s car culture through Rob Zombie's signature song and beyond.
*IN THIS VIDEO:*
→ The legal workaround that made the coffin acquisition possible
→ Engineering decisions that created a functional quarter-mile dragster
→ How one episode generated more merchandising value than an entire season
→ Auction records, museum provenance, and the survival of multiple authentic builds
→ Why the DRAG-U-LA template influenced Barris's business model for decades
*CHAPTERS:*
0:00 – The Back-Door Coffin Deal
1:15 – The Production Problem
3:00 – Acquiring the Impossible
5:30 – Building a Functional Dragster
8:30 – Broadcast and Immediate Impact
10:30 – Corporate and Cultural Consequences
13:00 – Survival and Authentication
14:15 – Final Analysis
*SOURCES & FURTHER READING:*
• Hollywood Star Cars Museum (Gatlinburg, Tennessee)
• Mecum Auctions archive records
• Barris Kustom Industries documentation
• Contemporary interviews with Richard "Korky" Korkes
*Credit To: (Ride with Alex Taylor) - / @tymekiller Video section 9:07 to 9:10.
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