Dick Dean

Born in Wyandotte, Michigan, 20 miles south of Detroit, the heart of the automotive world, Dean studied art and drafting at Theodore Roosevelt High School and also attended the Ford Trade School because his life's ambition was to be a model-maker at Ford Motor Company.

He used this outside fellow, who owned a tin building with a dirt floor, to do the serious repair that called for replacing quarter-panels and lead work, and his name was Bill Hines.

Dean entered the Air Force and served in the Korean War as a radio operator until his Honorable Discharge in 1956.

Returning to Michigan after the Air Force, he worked at a steel mill job until a deadly accident scared him away.

In 1960, Jack Ryan of Mattel toys, an avid car buff, tapped Dean to customize His/Hers Studebakers.

With a young family and plenty of creativity in his grasp, Dean then worked for Ryan at Mattel for several years, designing such notable toys as "Blaze the Wonder Horse," and the V-RROOM!

He collaborated with Dean Jeffries in 1966 on several TV cars, including Black Beauty for The Green Hornet and the Monkeemobile for The Monkees.

In the later 1960s, Dean built many dune buggies on shortened Volkswagen Beetle chassis with fiberglass Meyers Manx bodies.

The Shalako was featured on the cover of seven national car magazines[3][additional citation(s) needed] where it caught the attention of Malcolm Bricklin.

Dean continued to build cars with Dean Jeffries until his retirement, including the character cars in Death Race 2000 [1975], the remote-control Ford Explorers for Jurassic Park, the ECTO-1 Cadillac Ambulance for Ghostbusters, prop vehicles for the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, and the Flintstones movie.

His repertoire included chop, channel, section, lowering, custom grilles, lead work, and sculpting headlights and fenders.