Car culture lost an icon this past week when Gene Winfield died. Winfield was a California customizer in the 1960s, an era full of crazy visions and vehicles that begged to be cut, chopped, and rearranged into dream machines. While he started exclusively in 1/1 scale, he also was a consultant for AMT, the model kit company. As a result, many of his ideas were immortalized in smaller scale.
His cars appeared in numerous films and TV including the Spinner from Blade Runner, the 6000 SUX from RoboCop, and personnel shuttles from Star Trek.
Diecast collectors will definitely recognize his most famous car. In the early 1960s, Winfield hacked into a 1913 Ford Model T and created a stripped-down masterpiece he called the King T. At least the body was stripped… the powerplant was an enormous V-8 with a blower sticking out of the front.
It became the basis for a very popular kit from AMT but went on to even greater fame by the end of the decade. King T became the Hot Heap, one of the Original 16 Hot Wheels cars in 1968. Hot Wheels collector Bruce Pascal, a legend in his own right, owns the purple original car.
Winfield was 97 years old.
