The Kustom Kar King's Dean Jeffries Dies!!

Dean Jeffries, a contemporary of California's great kustom kar kings in the early 1950s, Who dies Sunday, May 5 at age 80.

Dean Jeffries grew up in Lynwood, Calif., across the street from Indy racer Troy Ruttman and around the corner from Sam and George Barris' shop. He spent his days hanging around the greats: George Cerny, Von Dutch and Big Daddy Roth. Dean Jeffries landed his first contract job striping cars for Barris where, among many Indy-Car bodies and racers' helmets, he painted the “Little Bastard” logo on James Dean's Porsche.


 Dean Jeffries moved out of the Barris enclave and opened his own shop in Hollywood, eventually settling in the famous Cahuenga Boulevard location. Dean Jeffries was perhaps most famous for the Mantaray, a bubble-topped creation built around a Maserati chassis and a Cobra engine. The car was the height of kustom kar extravagance in the early 1960s.

He made big money making movie cars, most famously the Green Hornet, Monkeemobile and the beginnings of what would become the first Batmobile, the car George Barris famously finished. Dean Jeffries was preceded in death by his second wife, Rosalee “Row” Berman, who died in 2008. He is survived by one son, Kevin Dean, from a previous marriage. A private family burial will be held, and a celebration of life is being planned for later this month.