Dick Dean

Dick Dean (February 9, 1933 – July 10, 2008), born Richard Dean Sawitskas [Sa-wits-kas], was an American automobile designer and builder of custom cars.

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 (Wyandotte) and also attended the Ford Trade School because his life's ambition was to be a model-maker at Ford Motor Company. His father, Vic, owned a Nash dealership and Dean worked in the body repair shop. He learned the technical aspects of auto body repair, but was frustrated with the lack of creativity.

Dean recalled, "Dad's body men could remove and replace fenders, bumpers and anything that unbolted, but little else. 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. Bill let me hang around and watch him work, and he taught me how to work lead and do other neat custom tricks." Dean mastered pin striping and began earning extra cash. He also started chopping tops, which very few people were doing at the time. He was a member of the Down River Modified car club. After high school, he went to Pasadena, California and studied at the Art Center College of Design under famous automotive designer Strother MacMinn.

Dean entered the Air Force and served in the Korean War as a radio operator until his Honorable Discharge in 1956. In 1954 Dean married Jeanne Schrader. They had met in high school and spent the rest of their lives together. Returning to Michigan after the Air Force, he worked at a steel mill job until a deadly accident scared him away. He then rented a little two-stall shop and started customizing on his own. South End Kustoms was a struggle to keep in business, but he held on and his luck changed. It was 1959 at the Detroit Autorama when he first met George Barris.

Dean related, "I built and entered an orange-and-white '57 Ford hardtop that I called 'Orange Peel.' The custom had neat little tricks that George liked, such as the stacked taillight lenses and the front grille treatment. Barris said, 'If you ever get to L.A., I'll give you a job.' We went to L.A. in [April 1960], and true to his word, George gave me a job at $175 a week, and there was plenty of work to do."

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