History Dean “The Kid” Jeffries The master pinstriper.

The man, all photos and captions from here:https://www.hotrod.com/articles/dean-the-kid-jeffries/

As usual the photos get larger and some are huge.

From a humble small town called Lynwood, a “kid” saw Von Dutch as an idol and followed right behind him. Minds were quickly blown away in a place in California now known as Kustomland.

Soon this kid was working with all the big names, including Barris, and fame followed. He partied hard with Dutch, but straightened himself out early on, taking his talents to the stratosphere. From sketches to finished product, this man could do it all.

Pinstriping, airbrushed monster shirts, motorcycles, scratchbuilt cars, movie work, stunts, dune buggies, and the Monkey Mobile, this cool hepcat was an old master who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. A talent larger than life.

Jeffries working on Carol Lewis's 1956 Chevy



Carol Lewis's 1956 Chevy Featuring Crab Claw Flames.



Jeffries (sporting A Perfect Fresh Cut Flat Top With Fenders) And Lewis Kick Back At An Outdoor Car Show.



Not only a pinstriper extraordinaire he was in the movie Bikini Beach along with his "Manta Ray car. (Quite the HAM he was)









Hamming it up in Manta Ray on the set


The Manta Ray Is His 1960s Masterpiece.



Dutch Was First When It Came To Airbrushing Shirts, But Jeffries Popularized It. Here He’s Wearing His Own Work While Striping The R&C Dream Truck.


The Tailgate Of The Wild Kat Was Classic Jeffries, Combining Striping, Painting, And Lettering Featuring Abstracted Cats On Both Sides Of The Main Image.




The "Flamer" Deuce Coupe Was A Collaboration Of Barris, Von Dutch, And The Kid.



His famous Porsche Carrera was a mix of custom and sports car ideas.




14 June1957 Rod and Custom




Dean Jeffries Porsche cover Oct 1959

 

Great stuff LB. I did not know that was Dean in the movie Bikini Beach. Interesting.

 

Cool stuff. Thanks for the bio. Snowman

 

All That.......and a movie star, Wow! Thanks, Banger.

 

A true master,thanks.

 

Awesome work all around, I looked up too what Dean did !
I was doing striping an airbrush wild car shirts late 1950 an 60s as well,but on east coast in Florida under my art name"The Bat".
Dean was amazing plus,my wife fell in love with the Manta Ray,when it was Seafoam pearl green at a show in Miami,that I also had a full custom in.

 

Dean and I in front of his shop just off the Hollywood freeway in California in 1988.

 

very talented, in more ways than one

 

Dean Jeffries built my 51 Mercury in the mid 50's for Phil Sauers who owned Inland Surf Surfboards and manufactured Surfboards by Phil which were used in Gidget,The Monkees and numerous surfing movies like Ride the Wild Surf and Bikini Beach. He was also a technical advisor for the surfing seen's. Von dutch striped the dash on my merc unfortunately it's missing. I only talked to Dean on the phone about my merc, sadly he passed away before I got a chance to meet him.

 

A couple of pic's.

 

Really a very nice guy too. We were in CA some years ago visiting my sister in Woodland Hills. So off we went to see Barris but his shop was closed. We found Jefferies shop and were looking through the fence, didn't look open either. A guy comes out and tells us "Dean says to come in". Hell it was great, we were just visiting car guys from NH but he showed us the shop, told us stories, posed for pics. A memory I will never forget.

 

To my eyes, as talented as any of the old masters, such as Dutch, Watson, Barris, and a good eye for the chicks too. R.I.P.

 

I knew Dutch airbrushed the first t-shirts-it was obvious by reading the little books-photos of him with airbrush appeared before the early Roth ads showed up.

So I asked Dean about it. He said, "Well, I had a friend, Kenny Howard, we hung out after work, and he introduced me to the airbrush". I asked, "What about Roth?". Dean said, "We'd never heard of him".

That told me, that while Dean may not necessarily have been the first, he surely didn't get the idea from Roth. But Roth did get the idea from Dutch and he said so.

 

My wife and I were at Dean's shop to ask him to panel paint one of my motorcycles. When we walked into his shop area we walked in front of this car. He had installed some sort of motion detector so when you passed directly in front of the radiator it would make the sound of a frog. it took us awhile to figure out where the "ribbitt" was coming from.

 

Here is a picture of the Dean Jeffries built Monkeemobile that is a little rare. As Monkee Mikey Dolenz writes in his book of Jeffries showing up to the studio where the Monkees filmed their show for the first time in the car with this little matching trailer attached. The Monkees loved the car but when they inquired about the trailer they were told it was portable stage so when they go to play at a new supermarket opening and such they would play on it. The group laughed and as they walked away told them what they could do with their portable trailer and playing such events on it. Dolenz in his book pondered what became of it after that as it was never seen by them again.

 

The day that I stopped by in late 1988 Jeffries was away working on a movie but Keith "Kid" Dean was there and I hung out with him for a while comparing notes on how we chopped roofs before he sent me to visit with his legendary dad, Dick.

Roo

 

When I was there he had just finished doing the cars for the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Dick Tracy. Can't quite remember. I do remember in a room in the front of his shop sat the Manta Ray. My late wife had no idea who he was but soon found out and was in awe of the room the Manta Ray sat in was covered from top to bottom of signed 8x10 framed pictures of all the celebrities and who's who of Hollywood he had built cars for. I have a picture somewhere of him leaning against the Manta Ray in that room. Outside his shop sat various cars used for movies including the tank that was used in the movie Damnation Alley.

 

The Manta Ray was there when I stopped in but it had that horrible paint with the pastel color graphics-so glad that it is back in its original color now. The flamed Tudor was parked in about the same place as in your photo and was what alerted me to the shop when I drove by on the 101.

Roo

 

Found it.

 

Don't forget the '64 Dodge Chargers he customized and painted red, white and blue. The roots of the Funny Car class can be traced back to those 3 cars.

 

I was attending a GM school in Burbank in the 70's and had time to kill. I ended up Dean's shop across the freeway from Universal Studios. He invited me in like a long lost brother. At the time, he was fabricating the vehicle for Damnation Alley. There was a 1 inch square tube skeleton on the chassis and they were just starting to skin it. Dean spent a couple of hours explaining the construction features to me, all by myself! Hen the movie came out, I was eager to explain about the car to anyone that would listen. Now it resides at Gene Winfield's very near to my home! I have had several talks with Gene about how Dean built it. Dean was a painter, pinstriper, fabricator, and engineer all wrapped in the most nice guy suit you ever wanted to meet. Fortunately, I got to talk to him a few more times before his death, always an honor.

 

I wonder where the flamed chopped and sectioned Tudor ended up? What a gorgeous car(cept maybe for the wires, but those were the times).

 

I had the chance to speak with Dean at The Autorama years ago...I asked him about this pick...I said something like “those were all good girls back than” and he’s laughs and says “ oh they were good all right and we tried to #*#* everyone of em”....we talked painting and pinstriping...yet I still remember the girl comment best...

 

RIP Dick Dean....Southend Kustoms..Downriver Legend...

 

He had one of the rarest Ford GT40`s ever built for many years. I remember reading he was fixing a broken sewer line in his front yard. He had a cut on his hand and it got infected. He said the shit dammed near killed me. His wife said he didn`t like paying anybody when he could do it himself.

 

I was fortunate to call him a friend. I visited the shop and several of us took him and his wife to lunch then went to the Petersen museum to see his cars. Spent the whole day with him. I would later call him monthly to check in while I was restoring his car and he would give me advice over the phone and answer questions. Super nice and full of knowledge. He said "if you ever want to know who built a car just ask me." I own one of his creations, one of the two Green Hornet Black Beauty cars he built for the 1966 TV show. www.theblackbeauty.com