Custom car legend Gene Winfield needs our help to get home
Hot rod and custom car legend Gene Winfield, still active and working at age 91, often uses the word “fabulous” to describe people, places, and things. But the remarkable nonagenarian isn’t feeling so fabulous himself these days. In fact, he could really use a lift home.
According to hemmings.com, Winfield fell during a recent trip to Europe and broke his hip, then contracted pneumonia following surgery. Due to his medical condition and his need to be on pure oxygen, Winfield cannot fly on a commercial airliner. That means he’s stuck in Finland and can’t get home to California. Not without our help, anyway.
Friends and associates have created a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of a medical flight, and they’re spreading the word through social media and automotive media outlets. The “Bring Gene Home!” initiative, which began on October 10, has already raised more than $90,000 of its $150,000 goal.
Hagerty has turned the spotlight on Winfield twice this year, first in a story published in the March/April 2018 issue of Hagerty magazine (now online)—in which he quipped, “Retirement is when they put you in the ground”—and we interviewed Winfield again after he drove a 1932 Ford roadster in the Race of Gentlemen in June. Rob Ida, who owns the ’32 and restored it to its original racing trim, has been instrumental in spreading the word about Winfield’s predicament. Ida wrote on Facebook that he had spoken to Winfield and “his spirits are up and he’s anxious to get back to the U.S.”
Let’s hope it happens soon.
