Dragula Dusted Off For Another Turn In The Spotlight

For appearing in one episode of a 50-year-old television show, Grandpa Munster’s Dragula has gone on to inspire a disproportionate following, both before and after Rob Zombie sang his paean to the coffin-bodied dragster. Now it appears the original has risen from the dead to head to auction along with several other automotive-related pieces of Hollywood history.

One of dozens, if not hundreds, of prop vehicles that emerged from George Barris’ North Hollywood shop, the Dragula – built specifically for a May 1965 episode of the Munsters that tried to glom onto the rising popularity of drag racing – originated with a Tom Daniel design and an actual coffin. As the story goes, Richard “Korky” Korkes, then working for Barris, convinced a North Hollywood funeral home director to sell the fiberglass coffin to him – paid in cash and left outside of the funeral home’s back door at night – even though it was illegal to sell a coffin without a death certificate… read more >