Just as the car, books written about the Corvette tend to be competitive; every successive author tries to outdo his or her predecessors. That's been the case for decades, but we'd sure hate to be the ones to follow up on this particular title.
How to find it:
Universe Publishing ISBN-13: 978-0-7893-9996-0
What it's called:
Dean Jeffries, 50 Fabulous Years in Hot Rods, Racing, & Film
Who done it:Tom Cotter with foreword by Bruce Meyer
What it's about:It's Dean Jeffries' biography.
Notes:
Without a doubt the custom-car and hot rod craftsmen who forged the path upon which we drive were legends. But among them, one stands apart, even if he never got the recognition due to him. That's Dean Jeffries.
So frequently the term Renaissance Man gets abused, but if there ever was one among American car culture it's Dean. Though entirely self-taught, he rode the pinstriping current during the nascent years of early '50s car culture. He created an entirely unique form of flame and scallop painting through the decade. He's credited with discovering both the means to prevent pearlescent paint from yellowing and the technique to consistently shoot flaked paint. When others were still customizing production cars, he built the Mantaray, a radical, asymmetrical aluminum-skinned job with an acrylic canopy. Among dozens of cars he crafted for the entertainment industry he built the wacky Monkeemobile, the sophisticated Black Beauty for the Green Hornet series, and the intensely technological quasi-military all-terrain vehicle for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie Damnation Alley. He both built and drove stunt cars for various movies, nearly paralyzing himself for one scene.
But you'll never hear The Kid crow about it. He will tell the stories, though, and that's exactly what he did for Tom Cotter.
By way of interviewing numerous people in the industry, including historian Greg Sharp, journalist Ken Gross, painter Hershel "Junior" Conway, manufacturer Gary Schroeder, and even Dean's rival, George Barris, Tom tells the man's story in incredible detail. Going back to his humble beginnings as a truck driver's son, Tom plots Dean's life. By revealing these stories, Dean offers us yet another perspective on automotive culture at the mid-point of the 20th Century. They're observations about Von Dutch when he was still Kenny Howard. They're ruminations of how he toured the country, monster-painting shirts years before Ed Roth did. They're the observations about Dean's unyielding sense of quality and craftsmanship that set his creations apart when fresh and enabled them to endure the ages without deteriorating as so many of his peers' works did.
Bear in mind that this is not a man predisposed to grandstanding. Dean's isn't a household name since he almost purposefully avoided the limelight, preferring instead to labor under the glare of a shop light. Nor is it a wistful rumination of a man in his Golden Years. No, even though many of his peers have slowed down, Dean Jeffries lives very much in today, still working, as he puts it, "Ninety miles an hour", whether it's an addition to his still working shop or restoring a car in it.
What 50 Fabulous represents is a neat man's incredible untold story. And he deserves every bit of glory he never got.
How to find it:
Motorbooks ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-3346-4
The Model T turns 100
Though it didn't get the fanfare of the Deuce or even the muffled cheer that the '33 Ford got when they turned 75, the Model T hit a grand milestone in '08 when it turned 100. To commemorate the event, several authors wrote books about the car's history.
Of those books, two stand out. One is by Lindsay Brooke; the other, Tom Collins. These books are very similar--similar enough, in fact, that we decided to take a different approach to them. Rather than repeat the information common to both of them in two reviews, we decided to give a general overview and outline the differences.