Born in a family of drag racers, Barry White was destined to work on cars. A refined taste for speed and beauty was ingrained in Barry as a youngster during his visits to Lions Dragstrip and Orange County Raceway. Barry started building drag cars at a young age, while his brother Denny drove them. Soon the brothers were consumed by the sport, but eventually family life and growing a successful silk-screening business influenced Barry's decision to get out of drag racing.

In 1985, Barry built his first street rod, a 1929 Ford Highboy roadster, at his home in Buena Park, Calif. Every day after coming home from screening T-shirts his roadster edged a little closer to the finish line. This roadster was eventually purchased by a small local theme park called Disneyland, and was featured in their nightly "Blast From the Past" parade for a number of seasons. With this accomplishment, Barry's friends began contracting him to work on their street rods.

This pushed him out of his garage and into a larger shop in Costa Mesa, Calif. Several years and one "granddaddy" trophy later and Barry finds himself in Corona, Calif., with a 10,000-square-foot shop where he is rapidly running out of room.