Barris receives Ceast and Desist from Universal

" target="_blank">Stars cars sets off alarms

Studio officials responded with a cease and desist order demanding that Barris never again make "misrepresentations regarding any involvement with the 'Back to the Future' films." They called upon Barris to remove images of the flying DeLorean from his company's website and restrict his display of replicas of the gull-winged car used by Michael J. Fox to time travel in the popular 1985 movie and its sequels.

Others, meanwhile, complained that film cars such as the K.I.T.T., the General Lee and the Monkeemobile were not originally designed and built by Barris, either.

For the 1982 "Knight Rider" movie and its 84-episode TV series, Scheffe designed and built the computer-crammed K.I.T.T. car used by David Hasselhoff. Barris was hired to build an upgraded version of the car for the show's third season with concept sketches from Scheffe.

But Barris "kind of makes it sound like he came up with the original concept," said movie car fan Nate Truman, a TV graphics operator who lives in Gardena and owns a replica Batmobile.

"The car guys want to get the story out while George Barris is still alive and can be confronted," Paul said. "I don't personally dislike him. But he's messing up the industry by misrepresenting history."

K.I.T.T. creator Scheffe, a Mar Vista resident who now is an art director for Sony Pictures Imageworks, agreed.

"George is an institution. He's done amazing things. I don't want to step on anyone's toes. But it's good for the people who did the work to get credit for it."