Hi Group:
I need to stop a rumor here before it gets started. Being a protégé and
very good friend of Gene Winfield, I know that he was not involved with
"Dutch" on the Gull Wing. First of all, Gene doesn't drink. Never has
drank any kind of alcohol-not even as a teenager. He doesn't like the
taste of beer and whiskey. Also used to tell me that "he felt that he
had a hard enough time getting everything done that he wanted to do with
out drinking-so why compound it by taking a chance on getting drunk".
Also, Dutch lived in LA and "Windy" lived in Modesto and although they
knew each other, they never worked together. What is kind of
interesting is that he is taking Dutch's widow to dinner tonight. She
lives in Arizona and is in LA this week on vacation. I worked for
"windy" until 67-when AMT corp. bought him out and moved him to
Phoenix. At that time I moved back to Oregon. (having been to Phoenix
for several car shows with "Windy" and knowing I didn't want to live
there). The only thing I liked in Phoenix was Chauvin Emmon's shop. It
was on one of these trips coming back after a show that Gene rolled the
"Solar Scene". He was behind me towing it on a trailer and got one of
the trailer wheels off the pavement and rolled it three times. I was
flat towing the "Jade Idol" behind my Nomad and he was trying to keep up
with me. We were doing about 85-90 when this happened. At that time, I
had a 427 Ford side oiler in the Nomad. The car weighed 4200 lbs, had
4-wheel disc brakes and dropped spindles and 1" roll bars and with 333
gears, was a wild tow car and cruiser.
In the 70's I restored three Gull Wings from the ground up. My customer
was a mercedes "nut". I did 3 gull wings and 2 540 K's for him in the
70's and 80's. My personal opinion of them is they are nice to look at
but not too good as far as engineering goes. The uni body is 2-3-&4
panels thick in areas, spot welded together. The spot welds are not
close together allowing dirt and water to get in between the panels and
when they rust out it is a real mess to work your way into the rot to
fix. They aren't the most fun cars to drive around town-ride rough etc.
But when you get them out on the road up between 100 & 160 they do drive
and handle nice. If I remember right the factory built 2 or 3 race cars
that were magnesium bodies. However, these cars burned in competition as
they soon learned that mag. was not the metal to use in car bodies. The
funny car people tried mag. in the interiors of funny cars in the 70's
and found out the same thing...it burns to easily.
Von Dutch was a very talented man, had many talents and was a real
innovator. There are lots of stories about him and probably even the
"lies" are true!!
Gene Winfield is 73 years old and still working every day. Three weeks
ago he came up to the 'Good Guy's" run for three days and while there
painted a project car for cruzin magazine with one of his shaded paint
jobs.
Hey, Ed, I finally got the engine and trans in the roadster yesterday.
I think the heat is affecting my brain. (couldn't be age). It took 5
hours to get the cam degreed in. Had to start over three times because I
got to thinking ahead of myself and screwed up. Anyway, I'll put the
head on tonight and get the rest of it together for dyno testing later
in the week.
RM. #902 XO M.R.
The Garbage Truck Motor Man
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