09/15/2026
George Barris didn't build the Beverly Hillbillies truck. He found it. An old 1921 Oldsmobile touring car was sitting behind a feed store in Fontana, California, missing its back end, paint gone to rust, looking exactly like something a mountain family would have driven into Beverly Hills. Most customizers would have restored a car like that. Barris left the decay alone on purpose, bolted a bed onto the frame, and called it finished. That beat-up look became the whole joke of the opening credits every single week for nine seasons. When the show ended, creator Paul Henning didn't sell the truck or store it away. He donated it to the Ralph Foster Museum in Point Lookout, Missouri, near Branson, where it still sits on display today. Visitors walk right up to the same dented fenders that carried Jed, Granny, Jethro, and Elly May out of the Ozarks.
