Folks Of Interest Gene Winfield Is My Boss...Here's Some Fun Factoids...

One cool and extremely talented dude...

I've been lucky enough to chat with Gene quite a few times in the past 10 years.

Julie, was this you in his Roadster at El Mirage, on his 82nd Birthday in June, 2009?

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Malcolm

 

custom legend,geniuos painter,perfect gentleman.

 

It was an honor for my wife and I when we meet him last year. It was like talking to someone you have known for years.

 

I met Gene at the performance world car show in Toronto Ontario, Canada in 2001. Same as a couple of other people have said, it was "call me Gene, Mr. Winfield was my father". Coolest guy you could ever hope to meet. I showed him a couple of pictures of my project car & he was asking me a bunch of questions about it. I was floored that this man that has built more iconic cars & painted more cool cars than pretty much any ten of the rest of us put together wants to know about my car. For the rest of the day you could not have knocked the smile off of my face with a crowbar. I was lucky, a lot of the people at the show did not seem to know who he was so I was able to bend his ear for 20 minutes or so before someone else came up to talk to him. I have the poster he signed for me framed & hanging in my living room.

Gene, Keep on doing what you do!! You are an inspiration & an icon for the rest of us.

 

I seen him a couple weekends ago....

AND I forgot to ask him for his autograph!

I feel like an idiot.

 

I recently attended one of Genes metalwork classes for 2 days he was great and I learned alot! After that the next day he painted my car!!!! What an experience that was , it was very cool and interesting to see his process of a blended paint job. He was very cool calm and collected even when a couple of oops happened he fixed it and moved on to the next panel awsome! After reading about cars he built and painted for years I was having him paint my car, and I was in the booth with him watching and filming the entire process!! He didnt seem to mind a bit although he did pretend to paint me when I got to close.

 

No drinking, no coffee, no candy?? Ohhh so thats the secret! Way to go Gene, 82 yrs young and still building badass cars

 

ol gene is a cool kat!
always has a smile on his face.i went to his shop in 02 or 03 to buy some parts off him. that was teh first time i ever been to his shop. he took us all through the place and gave us a grand tour. the hole time this dog that looked like a year old followed my mom. he told my mom "you want him" and of course she said yes. so we left with some parts and a new dog. Gene called him mercury but that damn dog never answered to it i called him Rocco one day and he came.
i dont know what he did at his shop while he was there but that sucker loves beer and eats cigars like candy! and can spot a under cover narc a mile away. best damn guard dog. he hates everybody.

heres a pic of him ask Gene if he remembers him. Oh yeah he loves to sleep next to you while you work on a car i guess that what he did over there with you guys.

 

Wow thats some story. He gave you his dog?! That awsome.

 

I wish I could be his secretary....shit, I'd Be the Official Gene Winfield Bathroom Attendant just to work for the guy.

 

Also one of the nicest guys you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. If only everyone in this hobby could be as cool as him.

 

What's so bad about coffee. I gave up several sins for it.

Gene is a good dude!

 

thumbs up from england gene keep up the good work

 

Uh,if you mean reading for children,not exactly.

 

i have the same story as Toner283 may have even been the same show. It was the friday i met him, we were standing looking at his car and i was saying how cool it would be to meet him and i look up and here's Gene walking up to the tables. Of course i had to say hi and stuck around while he set up so we could buy something to get autographed. I think we hung around for 30 mins and i ended up acting like a googlyeyed doofus the whole time.

 

met gene at lead east last year............. what an awesome guy ! the wife loved him too !

 

Gene is ultracool! 82 years old and still more active then most of the members on this board! I guess I have to stop drinking beer and coffee in order to be just as quick as Gene when I'm old....

 

My Gene Winfield story, really feeble though. At the Detroit Autorama last lear I was waiting in line for the doors to open and I saw a "familiar" face walking my way. I was with a non car guy friend and i said I know this guy...as he got closer I noticed the "Gene" name on his jacket and then i knew why I "knew" this guy. Gene was chatting with a friend as he walked and not a single person in the line noticed him, probably because it seemed like all the people in line were Corvette or muscle car guys. As he passed by I said "Hi Gene", he smiled and nodded and said HI back. Then we saw some more "celebrities" pass by, Like Nate Pritchert (SP?) from Pinks and all the muscle car guys got all excited, but he didn't look at or respond to all the hellos he was getting.....

 

Julie, you work for the real, Mr. COOL These were taken in '06 at el mirage. talked with him quite a while.. just a great guy! Hope to see him again at the famoso reunion in Oct.
OLY

 

I've met Gene once, two years ago at the Detroit Autorama I was helping a buddy who had his light weight galaxie in the show. It was Wednesday move in day. Well my buddy Buckle and I were looking at a car, one of Gene's work and he walks up and says "cool car but the paint sucks" or something like that apparently it had been repainted since Gene had done it the first time.
So we talked for a bit and Gene left. A minute after that I said to Buckle, damn I should have got my picture taken with him! Buckle by the way did know who he was! So the next day Thursday I had to work but Buckle went back to help our buddy with the Galaxie. On friday I met up with them again, and what does Buckle have, a picture of Him with Gene! He Told Gene some line about really digging his cars! I still kick myself for that one.

 

Me, too...cool...

 

Hope to meet you sometime, Gene. If you're ever in Tucson, let us know!
You're an inspiration to a lot of us!

 

Some great stories here. I get to meet him in like a week at a class in Austin. Can't wait!

 

offer him some salted pecans, he loves those!! I promise you...

 

i got to meet gene at the mooneyes show with my dad.

 

You can tell us the joke. Couldn't be worse than some of the other crap that gets posted here!

 

no drinking, no coffee, three meals a day, does magic things with metal and paint and spreads the gospel of hot rodding and custom work??

sounds like we need to rename him Saint Gene, patron saint of hot rodders speed freaks and metal workers!

 

Kool!!

I was wondering the other day what you were going to do about the shinny. Again you
blew me out of the water! This has to be one of the koolest builds in the HAMB history
and it deserves one of the Koolest Painters to use his magic on your Chevy. Kongrats on
the success of the build and can't wait to check it out someday.

Owning a Kustom that Gene Winfield painted, It doesn't get any better then that!

Happy Trails,

Mick

 

When this thread is all said and done and everyone who wants to say something has said it, there may be one word that goes beyond our admiration of Gene Winfield's love of cars, his incredible talents, his appreciation of people, his friendliness, his business fairness, his humor and everything else that people will detail in these posts. It is something that no longer gets talked about much in America any more by our parents, by our schools or much by our churches. It might just be the one word that summarizes why Gene is such a great man and makes him someone we all look up to:

Gene Winfield has CHARACTER.

Thanks Gene for mentoring us with your example.

 

Lots of milk!!!!