Gene Winfield's Legendary Customs

hi I'm Dennis gage thanks for tuning into my classic car home with a certified car nut well this week we're in Mojave California to visit one of the legends of Rod and Custom none other than Jean Winfield now Jean is built some of the wildest stuff ever this is gonna be a real treat Jean how you doing ma'am great Dennis good to see you good to see you and great to be here what a place you got a few projects going on yes I do yes you do all the time all the time every week every week every day Walter yes well what you got in the shot today okay well we have a 53 Chevy it's gonna go to Japan and we rounded all the corners of the bed and changed the stake holds and I made my own taillights with the bowtie nice design and I'd like that I like that how about the Merc okay the Merc is is here and it was already chopped but somebody else kind of messed it up so we had to redo it so we're redoing all the bodywork and we're doing disc brake conversion with drop spindles right now we got and the Merc convertible and that was a four-door that somebody else made into a I made into a two-door and we're just finishing it up and we had to make new panels and things like that so we're putting the windshield back on and it's going to be a nice car its own it happens to be on an 83 Cadillac chassis I mean we put these mercs on 77 through 84 GM chassis they fit pretty nice and they yes they fit the Cadillac we have to shorten the O's we'll build 98 we put it right on Wow how it works really good we've been customizing forever for like cents oh yeah since 1946 that's forever you also been racing though you got this little guy here wow this is a this is my little car I called the thing I recreated it about three years ago and it has a flathead power yeah and I built the nose all out of aluminum and everything the nose in the hood and we're gonna go racing this weekend no kiddin I'm gonna go to El Morocco she she runs and everything yes yes how fast you could go tomorrow well we're looking for 141 and a half and now is that what you run with these tires no these tires these dual tires I put on there just for drags so I ran in at Bakersfield at the drags just to show it off but I take these all these tires off and put on the the the Bonneville tires and off you go and then I make a run this weekend cool how is this another land speed car yes this is a 39 Chevy from Sacramento and it has a six-cylinder motor in it I believe it's a GMC and we're just doing some bodywork on it for him we have a panel it was all rustle yeah putting on a new panel and by the way we found in the fender this salt this is actual Bonneville salt I'm last year take 10 to 11 costume rust yes and that was right inside the rear fender where it builds up from the tire how cool oh cool we've been doing this for a long time even even customizing you've been riding you've been racing you've been you've been doing it all you've been movie Cars television cars yes I mean yeah memorabilia rap book yes I have a scrapbook we'll go over and take a look let's do that hey welcome back to my classic car and Jean Winfield's otherworldly land of customs Eugene nice 61 caddy thank you can we use it for a podium here sure let's look at my album right here what's the history Wow okay this is my first dragster 1948 you're a little younger than yes that doesn't look all that safe no it isn't they wouldn't let me run it today and I probably wouldn't lucky to be alive yes here what's what's that this is the Last Starfighter this is a car that I built for the movie The Last Starfighter and while I was building it they were creating it in a computer this is one of the first computer animated really vehicles that was ever seen Bonnie and Clyde I actually did this after the Bonnie and Clyde movie came out we wanted to show car to put in the shows so I took a nice 34 and painted it put new mohair upholstery in it took it to a police range and shot it full of holes with a real time for submachine that'd be funny yes it was Blade Runner I did all the cars I did 25 cars for Blade Runner Wow that was such a wild night was the Harrison Ford yes they were designed by Syd Mead and this is the car when I delivered it to the studio in 1980 this was Harrison Ford's car he drove in the movie and now this contracts yes this was the first Klingon this was a scale model of the first Klingon this was all done in wood and it was only about 24 inches long and then I built the shuttlecraft both interior and exterior and this was 24 feet long and 14 feet wide the original TV series yes yes for the TV series I did all the instruments all the seats did everything is that Woody Allen sleeper yeah this was transfers another movie and then Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in the movie sleeper and I did six vehicles for that I did it blow any of those up yeah they blew up a police car then I did the domestic on that all the robots around to the people's houses to do the house work I did too for passenger and to passenger this is Back to the Future 2 this is the original artwork and from this we made a full-size foam mock-up and took fiberglass molds off of it and then built this as the real car Wow the police car for and this is when they lifted to fly and I also did one of the DeLoreans that they lifted to fly it only weighed 700 pounds it was all fiberglass everything was fiberglass except the wheels tires the shifter and the steering wheel everything seats everything was fiberglass and I made the wheels fold under and everything treetog I think we're there man that's a cool stop Jean well thank you I think quite a book of memories welcome back to my classic car Jean Winfield scrapbook of his historical Hollywood customs was incredible but I just couldn't wait to get the scoop on this radical ride that was right under my nose well you know let's talk about this baby right here this is a cool 61 we called Mabley yes I call it Maybelline this is a 61 CAD but I was doing a car for a customer and and he had a four-door with this rough on it yeah color I fell in love with this panoramic rear window and so I took a 4-door roof off of a 60 and put it on my 61 what a steering wheel you got it thank you thank you I've made that steering wheel me and a plastic company and we glued the you know laminated both clear and gold plastic together and do a big square chunk and then put it on waves and machine the inside and milled it down through that's not some women that do it every four weeks at night I sanded and ground on this tree are these your mirrors the mirrors pop up out of the doors electronically very nice and what powers this baby this is a North Star a Cadillac Northstar engine and when I first put it in here you know it's a fairly small cubic inch and I didn't think it would move this car I mean it really well but it does it just really moves out very well right down the road very quick you got some tricks in the trunk - yes in the trunk there's a tray in there with the amplifiers in it the tray rolls out and tilts down it has neon underneath the carpet all the way around the back and everything and I raised the fins higher in the back made it a little longer and I extended this side fin way down almost 3 inches and tapers it all the way to just exaggerate it all the lines that's right and your signature paint job on this I've blended with my paint I can lower the hood and trunk for you oh they operate oh isn't that nice oh yeah in the trunk also gee I love your stuff man thank you but I came here to see some of your wild some of your wild early stuff okay all right can we go look at those that's going in some more writers well okay a couple legends from the 60s this is the strip star uh-huh and this is called the reactor I finished this I believe in 1965 so and again all all hand-formed Alou yes yes it's welded down the center we make one panel make each panel and this welded gas welded right down the center all around these seams Wow it has it has sequential taillights now this was and this was the car that was on the original Star Trek and an eye on what any wedding which they wrote a complete episode around this car on bewitched how do you get into this thing well we we raise it up like this is so cool and raise the door oh man this and then we raised of course of course the hood operates off of power this is a Corvair front-wheel drive on a Citroen chassis an old Citroen ID 19 I think it was called probably a 62 citron now you don't have any headlights well the headlights come out too automatic like this they come out and turn on by the flip of a switch and this actual unit was from a Honda on the motorcycle and then then I made the rest of it all out of aluminum oh man did any fired up doesn't run by me can you fire it up yes I think so yeah does she run down the road yes except the reverse is out oh so it's a little hard to drive yeah better day how about the Skrill start slow it runs good oh yeah okay well let's go look at that one okay great welcome back to my classic car you know the reactors pretty radical but this baby what a rocketship and I call it the strip star and has 427 Ford in it and it's all aluminum of course aluminum body does and in many pieces again how many pieces well I don't remember how many pieces but it has wells you know a weld right down through here and across here it's all made in pieces and this one we didn't make a wood buck we use cardboard and then we made it by hand and by eyeball supremist free handedness yes free handed well you know I noticed in the front end of this thing too it's it's so asymmetrical yes actually two headlights over here and none on that side and this is the thing we were doing in the 60 we were making thing asymmetrical and is it the same is it asymmetrical and back - yes yes also has a tail light on one side over here and then the strip star lights up oh and then it has a parachute for high speed now did you built it as a show car yes I built it as a show car and with the intent that it would also run and go fast did you make it go fast well I went to Bonneville in 64 just before we finished it and I made one run there and and I was breaking loose the tires were breaking loose well 427 yeah and I had a wait box in the back but but I didn't put the weight out and so it would break loose an attack would go way up and then back off back off and just let it couple up and so I just had to ease it through there and I turn 127 and then I went off the end and I hit a hole going off the end and it broke the tail shaft on the transmission broke it right in half so I would have had to rebuild the car and I just didn't have time it was already Wednesday and I just didn't have time to rebuild it and make another run and I was pretty sick about that because I wanted it to go 200 I don't that'd be that'd be pretty scary actually 200 news car envelope enough well we open up the top here like oh yeah okay oh yeah that's sort of one of your trademarks I I suspect that the hood does the same trick right yes of course of course Wow there it is a a 427 inch would you come by that well I got that from Ford Motor Company and that was when they were brand new the 427 so it was you know the first ones was in 62 and 3 and then did you have it worked at all well then I took it to Les Richie the Ford special yeah he's dead now but to to Les Richie and he cc'd the heads and and float tested it and all that so it's a it's a good honest 500 horse you know and I mean most show cars I don't don't go at all and this one went 127 and change right yes that's true that's it yeah that's true well you know you know this one's got two seats in it would would you like to take it yeah I would love to take a ride let's take this baby out for a spin okay don't kill me baby yeah can you follow the waves look oh man what a day she builds some awesome cars what history the strip star was unbelievable you know with a 427 high riser and today's gas prices you just don't get that par oh well it was still a blast what do you say gene should we tell her back yeah Toller bad guy next week will travel to Elizabethton Tennessee this all-american town puts on a celebration of classics with down-home charm plus we'll check out the new aluminum diamond plate interlocking floor covering so until our next meeting remember honor the timeless classic I'm Dennis Gaede happy motoring

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Views: 376,679

Rating: 4.8152509 out of 5

Keywords: My Classic Car, Classic Car, Dennis Gage, Mojave California, Race Car, Custom Car, Car Builder, Gene Winfield, Car Paint, Custom Paint, Movie cars, Winfield Movie Cars, Gene Winfield Movie Cars, Gene Winfield Rod Custom, Winfield Hot Rod, Star Fighter Car, Bonnie and Clyde Car, Blade Runner Car, Star Trek Car, Klingon car, Woody Allen Sleeper Car, Back to the Future Car, 61 Caddy, Mabeline Caddy, 61 Cadillac, Strip Star, Reactor, Winfield Strip Star, Winfield Reactor

Id: zgVWt5SvKy8

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2016