George W. Barber, Jr., founder of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, died on Sunday, February 15, following a brief illness. He was 85 years old.
Courteous and correct, yet clearly fired by an inner passion for doing whatever in life he chose to accomplish to the best of his ability, George Barber was the man we all dream of becoming. The Alabama businessman made a success out of everything he did in life. Following graduation from Auburn University, he began racing cars in 1960, at age 20. He soon proved he wasn’t just a rich kid who wanted to show off, but a seriously good driver who won 63 races and successive SCCA Divisional Championships against stiff opposition, including Dan Gurney and Peter Gregg. Moreover, he actually prepared the cars himself. “I did all my own work and was pretty expert mechanically,” he stated proudly. But his father George Sr.’s passing in 1970 put an end to his racing career, since, as the eldest of four children, he took the helm of the family milk business, Barber Dairies, at age 29, guiding it into a leading provider of dairy products in the Southern U.S.
The seed corn of the Barber Motorcycle Collection was a 1952 Victoria Bergmeister V-twin, which an employee restored for him after running out of parts to renovate their vintage milk trucks. “This made me see how a motorcycle is really a piece of mechanical art, which wears its technology on the outside,” said Barber. “Having always done all the work myself in preparing my own race cars, I began to fall in love with the mechanics of motorcycles, so in 1991, we started buying bikes to form the basis of a collection.”
Barber swiftly amassed an array of over 100 bikes. He incorporated the Collection as a non-profit entity in 1994 and began looking for somewhere to house it. In 2003, he opened the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, set alongside its own daunting but scenic 17-turn 2.38-mile racetrack set in an 880-acre site. Often described as the “Augusta National of Racing,” Barber Motorsports Park was born from George Barber’s mandate to create “a botanical garden with a racetrack in it.”
Today, the 230,000-square-foot Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum motorcycle and automobile display comprises over 1,000 machines of every type, with another 500 bikes held in reserve, alongside the world’s largest collection of Lotus racing cars. When the collection reached 1,000 vehicles, Barber was asked if he planned to stop. “Heck, no,” he replied. “I’m having too much fun. We’ll keep going.” The Barber Museum Extension, opening in 2017, provided over 50% more display area, which allowed George to finally display the extensive collection of dirt bikes he’d been building up in his cellars.
While George Barber never married, his life was defined by a deep sense of kinship with those around him — to him, his employees were his family. This commitment was evident in his personal touch; he marked every employee’s birthday and work anniversary with a personal phone call and maintained a genuine interest in their lives and well-being. Guided by a quiet humility, his philanthropic reach extended to more than 90 organizations across the state of Alabama, funding over 500 full-tuition college scholarships.
As a 501C3 Foundation, a non-profit entity, the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum and Barber Motorsports Park have a secure future after their founder’s passing. However, George Barber’s intent was that the Museum should be more than just a showcase for automotive history; it should also look to the future. Thus, in 2022, he established the 11,000-square-foot Barber Advanced Design Center to promote future internal combustion engine motorcycle design. This high-tech workspace, located on the top floor of the Barber Museum, facilitates future-facing state-of-the-art industrial design.
George Barber’s heritage will surely continue to live on long after his passing.
