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New York Times
16-03-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Gene Winfield, Whose Cars Starred in Film and on TV, Dies at 97
Gene Winfield, a hot rodder and prominent car customizer who built fanciful vehicles for 'Star Trek,' 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' and other television series and for films like 'Blade Runner' and 'Sleeper,' died on March 4 in Atascadero, Calif. He was 97. His son, Steve, said he died in an assisted living facility from metastatic melanoma. He had also been diagnosed with kidney failure. Mr. Winfield began to attract national attention in the late 1950s with a two-door 1956 Mercury hard top called the Jade Idol. According to the custom car website Kustorama, he transformed the Mercury for a customer by adding features like handmade fenders rolled in aluminum in the front end; headlight rings made from 1959 Chrysler Imperial Crown hubcaps; a television set integrated into a new dashboard; and a steering column taken from an Edsel. Automobile magazine described the Jade Idol as having 'a sharklike presence that represented a new direction in customs.' The car got its name from Mr. Winfield's inventive paint scheme: multiple shades of green and pearl white, with one color artfully blending into the other, using a technique that he developed. It became known as the Winfield Fade. In a 2014 interview with the racing news website On All Cylinders, Mr. Winfield said that he began his paint experiments with motorcycles, followed by a white Chevy, 'I put purple around the chrome strips,' he said. 'When I got done, it was a little bit gaudy to me; it was different, though, and everybody loved it. So as I started to do the next one or two, I made it softer and started blending.' Another famous custom job was a roadster, the King T, which he built in the early 1960s with Don Tognotti. They painted a Model T Ford lavender and added modifications like a Chevrolet V-8 engine paired with a four-speed automatic transmission; four-wheel disc brakes; and 15-inch chrome wheels with wood inlays. It won an award for 'most beautiful roadster' at the 1964 Oakland Roadster Show in California. Mr. Winfield chopped off the tops of many cars that he customized — including hundred of Mercurys — and put them back a few inches lower to give the cars sleeker looks. 'He would go to a World of Wheels show and, with his crew, cut off the top of a vehicle with a blowtorch and put it back four inches lower; it was quite a spectacle,' said John Buck, producer of the Grand National Roadster Show and the Sacramento Autorama, to which Mr. Winfield brought his cars, charming the crowds. Mr. Winfield's custom cars, if not his name, became widely known in the 1960s when they were seen on television and in the movies. He towed the Reactor — a futuristic, low-slung, aluminum two-seater with a gold and green color scheme, front-wheel drive and a hinged roof panel — on a trailer to the 20th Century Fox studio in Hollywood in 1966, hoping to get it a screen role. 'I went up to the gate and conned them into letting me in to show my car to their transportation department,' he told Motorious, a website for car collectors and restorers, in 2017. 'From there, the transportation coordinator gave me the names and addresses of all these other studios, and for two days I took the car around and handed out my business card. Two weeks later, 'Bewitched' called me and said that they wanted the Reactor on their set.' It was the centerpiece of an episode called 'Super Car.' The Reactor was then used on three more series: 'Star Trek,' 'Mission: Impossible" and 'Batman,' on which Catwoman (Eartha Kitt) used it as the Catmobile. He did some of his TV work as a division manager for the model-car company AMT, for which he built the Galileo Shuttle for 'Star Trek.' Based on a design by Thomas Kellogg, it appeared in a few episodes. He constructed it in two units. 'One would be a complete exterior, full size,' he told the official Star Trek website in 2011. 'Then we built the complete interior. This interior had what we called 'wild' walls. What you do is you make the walls in four-foot sections on wheels, so you can put up one wall and they could film the actors sitting on the seats and whatnot.' Robert Eugene Winfield was born on June 16, 1927, in Springfield, Mo., and grew up with five brothers and sisters, mainly in Modesto, Calif. His father, Frank, was a butcher who ran a wagon from which he and his mother, Virginia (Akins) Winfield, sold hamburgers and hot dogs for a nickel. After his parents divorced, his mother opened her own hamburger restaurant, where Gene started working at 10. He was 14 when he opened his first shop, to which he brought his first car, a 1929 Ford Model A coupe. To it, he added oxtails, two antennas and a blue paint job. But his hope of hot-rodding it in the streets was soon dashed when it was wrecked in a crash with a taxicab. He quickly bought two more roadsters. He served stints in the Navy, from 1944 to 1945, and in the Army, from 1949 to 1951. While stationed in Japan, he learned welding skills from an expert Japanese welder. Back home, his custom work got better, and he began to attract customers. He also began racing in the streets and on dry lakes in the late 1940s; in 1951 he took his custom-built Ford Model T coupe — which he called the Thing — and drove it 135 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. But what established his reputation were the cars that he customized — like the Maybellene, a modified 1961 Cadillac named for the Chuck Berry hit song and painted in cream and butterscotch tones — and the ones that he made for Hollywood. For 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,' the cheeky spy series starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, Mr. Winfield built a gull-wing car, with mock flame throwers in the front end and a Corvair engine. For 'Get Smart,' the spy-spoof sitcom starring Don Adams as an inept secret agent, he designed a sports car with gadgets like a retractable cannon. For 'Sleeper,' Woody Allen's 1973 science fiction comedy, he created a car with a bubble top over a Volkswagen chassis. He also built 25 vehicles for the dystopian science-fiction film 'Blade Runner' (1982), based on designs by Syd Mead, a few of which were called Spinners. One of them was flown by the police officer played by Edward James Olmos. One of the cars he built for 'Blade Runner turned up in 'Back to the Future Part II' Mr. Winfield's son said that he preferred customizing cars to creating them for television and films. 'The movie cars were dictated to him, but his custom car customer would say, 'Gene, here's my car, do whatever your inspiration says,'' he said. 'That's how he turned out the Jade Idol.' In addition to his son, from his marriage to Dolores Johnston, which ended in divorce, Mr. Winfield is survived by a daughter, Jana Troutt, from the same marriage; a daughter, Nancy Winfield, from another marriage, to Kathy Horrigan, which also ended in divorce; a son, Jerry Carrico, from another relationship; five grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Mr. Winfield said that he met with Ridley Scott, the director of 'Blade Runner,' every two or three weeks as he and his crew built the cars for the film. 'The only thing that I was unhappy about in the end results was that Ridley Scott had us do a lot of things that had to be absolutely near perfect as far as surface and shapes and colors,' he said in an interview with Blade Zone, a fan website. 'We went through hours, and hours, and hours of colors and all of this sort of thing, and then it was all filmed at night in the rain.' With a laugh, he added, 'You don't see even half of what we did.'
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Editor's Letter: I Got My Start with Jean Jennings. So Did Lots of People.
From the March/April 2025 issue of Car and Driver. C-Suiters, Aristocrats, and ego puffers didn't stand a chance when Jean walked in. Walls fell, posing stopped, and everyone's attention shifted to her. And she owned and satisfied every expectation. Every room was hers. Former Car and Driver editor and Automobile magazine editor-in-chief Jean Jennings died in December after a fight with Alzheimer's disease. Fortunately, Jean lives on in the many, many people whose careers she sparked. C/D might not have digital director Laura Sky Brown, senior editor Ezra Dyer, associate managing editor Jennifer Misaros, deputy editor Joey Capparella, or deputy design director Nicole Lazarus without Jean. She gave me a chance too. With only four major car magazines and the internet still in its Netscape Navigator phase, becoming a car writer used to be about as possible as playing for the Yankees. Landing a job required someone to die or retire—at least it felt that way as I was waiting in the Automobile lobby to interview as a motor gofer (its version of our road warrior). I wore a suit and tie. Jean found my overdressing amusing, possibly because she'd worn overalls to her first meeting with David E. Davis Jr. I made an impression, and my sartorial awkwardness inspired her to write a column about the great gofers of the past. Now I'm writing one about her. Like a great diaspora, Jean's hires are spread throughout the car-writing world. Her Automobile was a talent incubator, its senior staff (including C/D's Joe Lorio) a faculty that fostered genius. I learned magazine craft under the tutelage of Jean's number two, Mark Gillies, who in a career turn became one of the best PR people I've known. After he left, Jean elevated Joe DeMatio to the role. He led the Automobile academy by devoting his time and talent to enable the able. The training worked, perhaps too well. When Jean's discoveries kept abandoning her, she jokingly described Automobile as the of car writing. I gofered alongside Mike Austin, who is now Road & Track's executive editor. Jean said yes to the creative perfectionist Jason Cammisa when he was just a guy with a cool Volkswagen Scirocco; now he's a must-watch on YouTube. That same year she signed Sam Smith. Sam's writing makes us all look like hacks—I hire him whenever he says yes. Former C/D staffers Eric Tingwall and Erik Johnson got their first offers from Jean and still work in the industry—Erik met Jean after selling her a pair of shoes. She saw intelligence and capability in David Zenlea and Rusty Blackwell; today they're thriving at Hagerty's magazine and Bring a Trailer. More than just a finder of people, Jean also put women in control. During my tenure at Automobile, every department had a female lead. Amy Skogstrom—later executive editor at the Porsche magazine Panorama—ran production as managing editor. Art director Molly Jean governed design. And copy chief Wendy Warren Keebler ensured every word was where it should be. Outside the office, Jean's leadership and position inspired women to enter and prosper in a male-dominated industry. In addition to her disciples, Jean is survived by her husband Tim, her three dogs, and her body of work, which remains as engrossing, funny, and disarming as it was when it was printed. Jean, know that while you disarmed us all, you armed three generations of writers. Thank you. You Might Also Like Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades How to Buy or Lease a New Car Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!
