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Interview: Dean Jeffries, Hollywood legend

Quiet On The Set

We've just learned that Dean Jeffries has passed away at the age of 80. Jeffries, a famous custom car builder and painter, was behind countless futuristic creations such as the Manta Ray and the trolley in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Below is an interview he gave Motor Trend Classic in 2006, which originally appeared in Issue 2 of the magazine. Our friends at Hot Rod also have additional photos of Jeffries and the Manta Ray.

Jeffries' son Kevin has released a statement, noting that Dean " is now reunited with the love of his life, his beloved Row, who preceded him in death by 4 years." While a private family burial will be held, a celebration of Jeffries' life is "on the drawing board" for late May -- head to DeanJeffries.com for more details.

Like most anything connected with Tinseltown, Dean Jeffries Automotive Styling is not what it first seems. From the outside, the two-story workshop behind a sturdy fence is just another industrial box on this narrow strip of Cahuenga Boulevard, a blur to the thousands of L.A. motorists who hurtle past each day on the nearby Hollywood Freeway.

If cars were celebrities, though, the place would rate a star on the nearby Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Here, from the early 1960s through the 1980s, Dean Jeffries designed and built some of the most famous vehicles in TV and movie history. Among them: the bubble-topped Mantaray from the 1963 Frankie & Annette jiggle-fest "Bikini Beach," the Green Hornet's Black Beauty, the Monkeemobile, the colossal Landmaster from 1977's "Damnation Alley," the moon buggy that James Bond steals in "Diamonds Are Forever," the trolley from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" In addition, Jeffries has worked as a pinstriper, created scores of street rods and custom one-offs, and even performed a number of memorable movie stunts.

Despite his star-studded resume, the now-retired Jeffries is as unassuming as the garage he continues to tinker in, a man who prefers to let his meticulously crafted, artfully fashioned vehicles speak for themselves. It's a character trait that's worked against Jeffries for much of his career, allowing him to be overshadowed by his flamboyant, self-promoting North Hollywood rival, customizer George Barris -- the mere mention of whom immediately sets Jeffries on edge...

Motor Trend Classic: How did you get started in the car-customizing business?Jeffries: When I was growing up in Lynwood [in South-Central Los Angeles], my dad was a mechanic. Mostly motors and stuff, which I didn't like at all -- too greasy! But next door was this guy who did bodywork, and that's where I always hung out.

MTC: So you learned the craft by watching?Jeffries: Yeah. I wasn't into custom cars at first, but at 17, I had to do the military thing [the outbreak of the Korean War] and got shipped off to Germany. There I saw all these guys painting motorcycles, and that's where I got into pinstriping. When I got back, I was running around with Von Dutch -- me and him were what you call "having a drink guys." We'd do freelance pinstriping on our own, then get together and hang out. I also worked during the day at a machine shop doing grinding. But pinstriping really took off then -- I was painting little pictures and medallions on cars. My first job was pinstriping a boat. I didn't have no shop back then. You were lucky if you got $5 for a whole car. If you got $25 in your pocket in a day you were King Kong. I thought it was great.

MTC: So you didn't have any formal training? It was all natural talent?Jeffries: It had to be. I never went to art school -- lucky if I went to school at all. I just learned by watching others, and I'd just sit there for hours and hours and try to do stuff.

MTC: How did you progress from pinstriping to customizing?Jeffries: First I got into painting. This shop asked me to paint three Porsches for them. I really didn't know how, but I did it anyway, and they turned out really nice. So I thought, "I'll start painting cars, too." About this time I bought a real cheapie Porsche Carrera, but I couldn't stand the look of it so I redid the whole front end in metal and welded it back together -- there was no such thing as Bondo back then. And I painted it real bitchin'. That car got lots of recognition.

MTC: You were also painting race cars at that time, right?Jeffries: That's right. Troy Ruttman [1952 Indy 500 winner] lived across the street, and I bummed around with him a bit, learning about race cars. I liked it, liked the people. Then I ended up tying up with Mobil. They would paint anybody's race car for free at Indy. So I did A.J. Foyt's car, and Parnelli's, and Jim Rathmann's...everybody wanted me 'cause I was doing things a little different than plain old paint jobs. One year in the early 1960s, I did 21 of the 33 cars in the race. I was doing pretty good!

MTC: Is that when you got involved with Carroll Shelby's Cobra project?Jeffries: Yeah, about then. Shelby brought the first Cobra back from Europe, and it was crude. And it ran like hell. The body was a mess -- all-aluminum, but it wasn't quality. Because I'd been trying my hand at aluminum work, I redid that first Cobra for Shelby -- painted it, too. Shelby couldn't even afford to pay me; he hadn't gone to Ford yet. So we loaded that Cobra on a crappy old trailer and off he goes to Ford -- says, "I'll pay you when this thing clicks." Well, he goes and he gets tied up with Ford -- booms out, 90 miles an hour! But he only had one car! So he comes back, and now he's gotta show everybody that he's got all these cars. So I'm painting that damn car over and over...they show it one day, then at night I paint it again, and the next day he shows it somewhere else. It was like he had five cars, but there was only one!

MTC: What prompted you to build your first fully customized car, the Mantaray?Jeffries: A famous customizer back then, Bill Cushenberry, had won the Oakland Roadster Show, and I said to myself, "If I want to be a customizer guy like him or Barris, I gotta learn and do that kinda stuff -- make something quite unique and different, a winner." I was lucky, because my ex-father-in-law had two prewar Grand Prix Maseratis rotting away in his backyard, with weeds growing through 'em and everything. I asked if I could have one, and he said, "Sure. Nobody wants 'em." Can you imagine what they'd be worth today! Anyway, I tore it all down to the chassis, and I started forming a shape out of little quarter-inch rods -- I didn't know how to beat metal around wood back then.

I curved every piece just by looking at it and referring to a drawing I'd made. Then I took the framework down to California Metal Shaping, and for $800 -- which wasn't bad back then -- they shaped the aluminum body pieces in about a week. Of course, when I brought all the pieces back to the shop I had to adjust 'em and trim 'em to make it all work. But there isn't a shred of fiberglass on that car. I made the plastic bubble roof by myself.

MTC: You got a lot of attention for the Mantaray. Jeffries: You bet I did! I won the Oakland Roadster Show, which included a free trip to Europe. And I got on the cover of Hot Rod. That was the tops. And what happened to my business after that you can't believe. I was a lucky guy.

MTC: And then the Mantaray got you into the movies?Jeffries: It did. Steve Allen saw my car somewhere and had me bring it onto his show. So this movie producer sees me on TV, and he calls me up and says he wants my Mantaray for his new movie. That was "Bikini Beach." Well, first of all, Frankie Avalon couldn't drive a stick-shift -- he could barely drive an automatic. So I ended up driving the car on camera, doubling up for Frankie Avalon's Potato Bug part. I didn't get a lot of money off that movie, but it did get me into the business -- I met a lot of directors, producers, stunt guys. So I started making cars, model airplanes, boats, trucks, whatever the movies needed. I enjoyed the heck out of it.


MTC: How is that possible?Jeffries: My contract stated that when filming was done, I had first right of refusal to buy the cars back. So after the shows were over, the producers offered me the Monkeemobile and the Green Hornet for $1000 each. I said, "Heck, I could build new ones cheaper" -- this was back in the 1960s, remember. So I turned them down. And George ended up with both cars. Then the company that made a Monkeemobile model ended up saying that legally George now has the rights to the car. I said, "Yes, the rights to own the car. But not the right to say he built it." But they went ahead and put his name on it anyway. I don't go any further on the why and how in this situation. But it's not over, that's for sure. That's all I can say. [For the record, Jeffries built two copies each of the Monkeemobile and the Black Beauty. The #1 Monkeemobile is now in private hands on the East Coast. Barris owns Monkeemobile #2 and recently had a promotional third car built by renowned customizer Dick Dean (who assisted Jeffries on the originals). Barris eventually sold his Black Beauty; one is privately owned, and the other is in the collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.]

MTC: How about the original Batmobile? Who built that?Jeffries: At first, I had the contract. I started with a 1959 Cadillac, made the back fins bigger, put on a completely new front end. Then the producers came to me and said they needed the car done in a week and a half. Well, I said I couldn't do it, not even if I put 10 guys on the job day and night. So they ended up giving the project to Barris.

MTC: While we're setting the record straight, who actually painted "Little Bastard" on the Porsche 550 Spyder that James Dean died in?Jeffries: I did. For years Barris claimed he painted it; now he just says he can't remember and somebody in his shop painted it. Sure. I used to bum around with James Dean. I wasn't trying to be his movie friend. We just had car stuff between us. We hung out, got along together real bitchin'. But one day Dean asked me to paint those words on his car, and I just did it.

MTC: Doesn't it bother you about Barris taking credit for things you've done?Jeffries: Georgewise, I admire the hell out of what he's done all these years. I knew his brother, Sam, a very talented man, a very good metal man. I used to hang around their shop. George is not a metal man -- I've seldom seen him do anything with it. I'm not bad-mouthing him. He's a good promoter. I just don't care for somebody who puts their name on something they had no part of.

MTC: Okay, change of subject. You also did stunt work?Jeffries: They'd hire me to build cars, then sometimes they'd have me drive, too. I worked on "The Blues Brothers" -- we must've smashed a couple hundred cars on that one. I also once jumped a five-ton truck down in Florida for "Honky Tonk Freeway." I ended up breaking my back when I landed, and I couldn't move my legs to stop the truck -- I was going over 100 mph. So I just reached up with my arm and pushed my leg onto the brake and skidded to a stop. Afterward, I didn't tell nobody. And I was real scared of doctors after this big-time movie star had died during a back operation. So I just told my wife to drive me home to the shop. I took a piece of aluminum, wrapped it around some sheepskin around my waist, and sucked it tight to hold my back straight. I also built this thing to let me hang upside down and stretch out my back; I did that three or four times a day. It worked okay. Only problem is, today when I get up out of a chair it isn't quite right. But, hell, when you're this old you don't wanna get up anyway [laughs].

MTC: Any other serious injuries during your stunt career?Jeffries: I fell off a ladder here in the shop about three years ago. Split my head wide open. My wife found me on the floor, blood all over. I was in a coma for two months. The hospital put a cork in me, said I'd never be nothin' again. Well, here I am. I couldn't move for a year, though. Had to learn to walk all over again.

MTC: So now you're officially retired. But you still work in the shop?Jeffries: Oh, yeah. I still come in here and play around. I like to work on my GT40 roadster, one of just four built. I've completely restored it. I've been offered $4 million for it, but at this point I'm not selling. It's been too many years of working on it. I enjoy taking it to shows, driving it around. Of course, I'm not stupid. If I get tired of it, then maybe I'll sell. It's a real neat car.

MTC: You've had a remarkable career. Of all the cars you've built, which one stands out as your favorite?Jeffries: The Mantaray. I was interested in doing it and very into building it. I liked learning the aluminum. I liked the inside and the outside. And it still looks good today. That was a real personal project. And now the Mantaray is in the Petersen museum. They even gave me a nice old section bigger than my office!