General
Gene Winfield, Whose Cars Starred in Film and on TV, Dies at 97
He was know for modifying cars with innovative metal work and paint jobs, and for building vehicles like the Galileo shuttle for the original “Star Trek” series.
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.”
