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Custom Car Builder Gene Winfield Discusses: Flying DeLoreans, Hovering Police Cars, and Future Ferraris

For over 60 years an automotive enthusiast who now resides in the Californian Mojave desert has been bringing concept dream cars to life.  Gene Winfield today is still turning a wrench, designing and building cars, working through out the night.  He started out in the 1940s building race cars and doing custom body work for friends.  He opened his first shop “Windy’s Customs” and developed a reputation as both a racer and a car builder.  In the late 1980's, his talents helped bring Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis' vision of a future 2015 to life in Back to the Future Part 2.

Winfield’s vehicles drew the attention of the Detroit’s automotive “Big Three.”  Winfield with a few other car customizers was hired as a consultant on actual production cars. As Winfield’s portfolio of  custom cars grew, and since he was based in California, it was only a matter of time before making vehicles for Hollywood.  Some of his television and film credits include: Star Trek, Batman,  Bewitched,  U.N.C.L.E.,  Last Starfighter, Blade Runner, Sleeper, Robocop, and Back to the Future Part 2.

For Robert Zemeckis’ 1989 film Back to the Future Part 2, Winfield built several custom fiberglass cars, and some of his past “future” custom cars were brought in to dress the sets of Hill Valley circa 2015. Tim Flattery in a past interview with bttf.com mentioned how he hired Gene Winfield for some of the complex fiberglass concept cars to built.  The 2015 police car, the red/black "Ferrari" Texaco car were both built by Winfeild's crew.  Winfield's crew also built the flying DeLorean for Part 2.  For the first time ever, in a BTTF.com exclusive Gene Winfield agreed to do a Back to the Future only interview giving all fans a chance to learn how movie cars come to life.

So how did you get involved with Back to the Future Part 2?

Well I think Tim Flattery called me.  He knew I had done some movie cars.  He came down and shared some sketches of a police car he needed to get built.  He had some small color renderings of the police car and I liked it a lot and we agreed to do the police car and the Texaco car.

So how did you actually create the police car?

First we did a scale model from drawings.  We cut that up into sections and then projected them up on a wall.   We sculpted the police car in foam.  We made an armature out of wood and put 12 inch foam wrapped around it and the sculptor took it from there.  We then painted the foam in resin and did some bondo work here and there and then shot some more resin.  Then we made the mold. 

How many police cars were there going to be?

We started out to build three then it charged around.  There was supposed to be a street drivable car and another one to be lifted up to be a flying car.  

Did any end up being a drivable car?

Well we ended up not putting a motor in it to be a street driver.  I wanted to put a V6 Buick engine in it.  I have 2 of those police car bodies here.  I’m going to put a V6 engine in one and make it a drivable car.  I’ll dress it just like in the movie.

Did the police car have an interior?

Police cars had no interiors.  Just seats in there with minimum interior.  We put part of a dash in there and an interior panel on one door that opens up.  I have built cars for commercials where you only see half the car the other half wouldn’t be made up.

What happened to the molds of the police car?

It was sold to Jay Ohrberg.  He made 2 cars.  I just bought one of those cars.  It got wheels, tires, doesn’t steer.

Did you have anything to do with the police cycles?  Were you hired to build any other new future cars other than the police car and Texaco car?

No someone else built the other cars like the Citroen taxicab.  People at a company in Moore Park built the Probes.  Tim designed a lot of the cars.  I didn’t do the police bikes… but those are just killer…. Beautiful!!  I don’t know what happened to all of them; a car builder friend of mine has one sitting up in  his loft. He duplicated it from pictures, he did a tremendous job it is so beautiful and right on. (Photograph below is of the custom scratch built BTTF police bike, built on a Harley Davidson motorcycle).

 Did it seem like the production was large and the construction of these future vehicles to be daunting?

Yes,  yes it was so involved.  Tim farmed out to different shops to do other vehicles.

At the end of the first movie the DeLorean was shown flying off into the sky.  For Part 2 the flying DeLorean was going to be a key spotlight.  Did you do any work on the DeLorean for Part 2?

Michael Lantieri asked me to build the flying DeLorean.  It was great to work with him.  I had no problem at all working with him.  Tim Flattery was also great absolutely.

So you built the fiberglass flying DeLorean?

Yeah that’s right we built a complete fiberglass car.  Everything was made of fiberglass.  It weighed only 700 pounds.  All fiberglass ... the seats.  Only the tires, wheels and steering wheel weren’t fiberglass…everything else  was fiberglass…

How did you make the wheels tilt and fold for the flying scenes?

The tires and wheels I made them to fold under the car by hand.  I had picture of the bottom where they were turned by hand.  No motors.  To make it fly  I had station points in it so it could be lifted to fly.  I painted it and brush finished it to look like stainless steel.  When they set my car by one of the real DeLoreans, you couldn’t tell the difference.  It looked exactly like the real car.

Did you put any of the props or dressings on the car to make it look like a time machine?

That was done by production, the retro fitment stuff the studio did all that.

Did you put the lights on the bottom of the fiberglass Delorean?  Did it have a full bottom?  John Bell designed several treatments for the base of the DeLorean.

There was a fiberglass bottom, we filled in the bottom and made a full pan under everything.  Yeah I remember a little bit about lights. However the car I did the most detail work on the bottom to was the Blade Runner Spinner it had lights like crazy.

They used one of your Spinners in Back to the Future Part 2 didn’t they?

Yeah they did use one. There were all these cars sitting on street where Michael J. Fox comes around on a floating skateboard he was hanging off the Jeep.  I had 6 of my cars on that street.  Some of them were The Strip Star , the Spinner from Blade Runner, the car from Last Starfighter,  Bubbletop  from Sleeper…

At the time did you own the Spinner used on the set?

That was Bob Butts’ Spinner he owned it and he rented out the Spinner.

You also mentioned they used your Last Starfighter car in Back to the Future Part 2. That was a gull wing car too correct?

Yes it was a four door gullwing and they (Last Starfighter production)  were real tight on money and they only had me power 2 doors. The driver’s door and the right rear door where the young guy gets in the  car and they take off and flies. Robert Preston drove that car landed on earth.

Do you know what happened to that car?

It went to France. I sold it to Jay Ohrberg and he painted red of all things. It was silver and I tried to trace it down through Jay recently and he sold it to a broker over there.

Did you do any work on the other Back to the Future films?

I only worked on Part 2.

In an article in the old official fan club Micheal Lanteri mentioned the fiberglass DeLorean was wrecked during filming on the first day.  Do you know anything about this?

No  I don’t I only built one Delorean.  I know the train hits one in that one scene but I don’t think it was my car.

To make molds did you find a stock DeLorean?

Oh Yeah I took a regular Delorean and made molds off of it. Molds of everything!!!! Every mold came off of a complete car.  The fiberglass seats had leather wrinkles they looked real.  The dash had that pebbly grain, it looked real. All fiberglass.  I think I farmed part  of that job to Carl Green, he did the light weight tubular structure.

How exactly did you make the fiberglass DeLorean to fly?

Cables… Cranes… I put a structure in the car and secured it with i-bolts in specific locations to fly.  I also had to make a Spinner fly recently. There is a Spinner in a museum, Paul Allen built this weird building, it is rounded almost a block long, it has rounded walls.. strange looking. It has a rock and roll museum and a Christmas tree built out of guitars a couple stories high.  Then another half of this building is a SCI FI museum. They found a Spinner they bought at auction and brought it to me and I restored it.  It is the one Jay bought and he made it into a shell he showed around in his car shows.   I had to rebuild it to be how it was when I originally built it.  The bottom was all busted and they told me we’re going to hang it. I had to go and dress it paint it and add lights.  You walk under it and see all the flashing lights it is really cool.

Did you spend anytime on the set of Back to the Future Part 2? Did you work on the set at all?

Yes I was on the main courtyard.  I was there several different times.  I helped them put the Texaco car on the upper level.  I was there and delivered all of my cars on the street.  I was there.  Quite often I would deliver them to the studio or the filming location. I had a movie car rental company at the time. I would rent your car to the studio. I rented some of Bob Butt’s car collection to Back to the Future Part 2. 

Did you like the set?

Oh yeah it was a good set.  Old Biff was a good chuckle.  It was a nice movie, I liked it a lot.

Was the Texaco car a roller only?  Was it made out of fiberglass?

Yeah it’s a fiberglass roller it wouldn’t steer, just a shell almost no chassis.

On movie productions did you have a large staff?  Like for Back to the Future Part 2  how large was your staff.

Oh Yeah my staff I change as I need up or down as needed.  For Back to the Future Part 2 I had 12-14 guys. Bladé Runner I had to rent 2 other shops and I had 50 guys working on Blade Runner…3 shops total.  I had 17 on fiberglass alone.

Back in the 1960s I heard you were hired by the Detroit “Big 3” to help design production cars?

We built what  later became known as  concept cars, at that time they called them show cars.  My first car was with Ford. In all together I built 6 Ford concept cars.  I didn’t do much too much for GM. I did do a Camaro for Glenn Campbell’s wife. I did a Cadillac station wagon.

Did you meet John DeLorean?

Oh yeah sure, in fact I designed parts for the Trans- Am when he was there at Pontiac. I had Terry Bradley design these parts and helped me. He did the artwork  and we presented them to Pontiac.  They knew what the Trans-Am would look like 5 years before it came out. So we called it Cam-Am on our artwork.  We presented Cam-Am artwork which we knew would go on the Trans-Am.  They  choose 6 out of 8 designs and so I made prototype parts and I went to Detroit to the engineering department and installed these parts and painted them right there in the GM engineering division and then John DeLorean came down  and he looked at them and he ok-ed  5 out 6. 

As an automotive enthusiast and designer, what do you think of  the Delorean as a vehicle on its own right?

I liked it.  I thought it was a great car. I was unhappy when DeLorean got the bad end with that deal.  I went to England on a trip and toured the Rolls Royce factory and went here and there seeing everything. I also went to the Lotus factory. I go to Lotus and go in a room and there are 20-30 guys doing drafting and design work.  I said to them,  “you got a car in production already what are all these people working on?”  They were working like mad.   They told me, “that’s for John Delorean.  They are designing parts and the car for DeLorean.”  I thought that was real cool, to see Lotus doing that work.

While on the set of Back to the Future Part  2 did you meet any of the stars other than Old Biff?

Oh I met Michael J. Fox and the older fellow… Christopher Lloyd.  They would introduce me. …Old Biff….  I never thought about autographs back then. I did a car for Michael Landon and then before you know it their gone… all these people I had met.  I never really thought of autographs.  Now I go after any autograph I can. You learn over time.

On Back to the Future Part 2 did you have any interesting problems you had to over come to make a movie car come to life?

One thing people don’t know is what you go through to make a movie car on deadline.  One of the plexiglass windshields had an interesting story. I had my own oven built for plastic windshields; it was 6 foot by 8 foot.  Well this one piece of smoked plexiglass cost $400.  We put it in the oven and pulled it out with special cotton gloves to lay it on the car and we dropped it on the floor. We had to pick up clean it up a little, put it back in the oven, then remove it from the oven and put it on the car.  Then we had to sand and buff all the scratches and sand from the shop floor out of the windshield so it would be clear. We had to work through the night to deliver the car for the next day. We spent hours just sanding and buffing the windshield.  This was the Texaco smoked glass windshield.  It would have been easier to buy another piece of plexiglass but that would have taken 2-3 days, but we had to deliver the car the next day, so we had to work your you know what off.  (chuckling)

Another Hollywood car builder said you did concept work on Back to the Future Part 4.

Umm no I can’t remember.  It seems like I talked to somebody about that.  I don’t think I actually did any work.

There were all these rumors that you were going to build the next time machine. 

Yeah it was rumors, just rumors. 

I guess you left the movie business awhile ago?

Yeah I got away from the movie industry 7 years ago.  Now I am in the desert doing my thing.  Now they want everything overnight.

Do you think the entry of the computer in the design of movie cars affected you?

Oh I bid on the second Batmobile. I didn’t get the job on the first film so on the 3^rd film I made a bid on it.  The people in Moore Park used to work for GM used a computer to carve foam. Computer carved the entire thing. They built, painted it in 30 days. I couldn’t compete with that. I need 90 days to do it by hand. That’s when I gave up movie cars.

I have heard you are still building cars?

I am building custom cars and hot rods. I working on a ’32 coupe for a customer and of course I just built my ’32 roadster for Bonneville. I have a Ford Nascar engine in it built by Robert Yates 830 horse. I’m going after a record at Bonneville that is 229.308.  So I am going to go 230 or better.

Before we go anything else you want to tell us about other projects?

I have a book out about my hot rods.  My next book is going to be on movie and television and commercial cars.  I did a lot of commercials and people never ask who makes those cars.  By the way I am starting to build a museum at my place. The front building is going to be an old gas station with lots of tools from the 40s-50s, everything is going to be rusty, like it was back then, real rusty.  Then there is a house and each room is going to be a different.  When you walk in it will be Wendy’s dinner, my nickname was Wendy.  My first old custom shop was called Windy’s.  There’ll be Windy’s ice cream and Windy’s this and that.  Then you walk in another room and it will be 40s-50s, magazine covers, posters about what I did..  Then there will be another room with a Star Trek emblem. It will have Star Trek, Blade Runner, Back to the Future.  Pictures posters, and a scale model of the shuttle craft Galileo 7 and I am going to reconstruct the Galileo seats, an actual seat.  Then another room will be the hot rod garage. Stuff from my racing days. I have a flat head engine I blew up racing and I am making a glass top coffee table. It will have four carburetors, the magneto it will be pained purple and be beautiful look like it is ready to run but inside it is blown. All something I am doing in my spare time, might take a year or two.

Thank you Mr. Winfield for your time, good luck with your future car projects!

For more information about Winfield's work visit:  http://www.c-we.com/piranha/GeneWinfield.htm

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