He raced his '34 coupe at Bonneville during the third Speed Week.
He worked on the U-2 spy plane.
He was employed in the Ford Motor Company styling department.
He owned the Doane Spencer roadster for awhile.
He coined the terms "Go-Kart" and "Mini-Bike"
He was the second editor of Rod & Custom magazine.
Lynn Wineland passed away on February 24. He was born 81 years earlier to the day, the son of an auto mechanic and racer who passed along the gene for building cars and going fast. As a teenager in Long Beach, California, Lynn developed his hot rod chops by tearing apart and rebuilding his first car, a '29 Model A roadster. He further developed his skills in the Air Corps. He had enlisted in 1945, at the age of 17, intending to become a pilot, but the war had just ended, so he learned aircraft mechanics instead. He was stationed at Muroc, where he worked on military jets.
He was sent to Ohio, where he discovered that speed equipment was not as common in the midwest as it was in California, so Lynn started selling So-Cal Speed Shop products to Ohio hot rodders. After the service, he enrolled in the Dayton Art Institute. From there, it was on to Detroit to work for the Ford Motor company in the styling department. By this time, Lynn was also writing articles on automotive subjects for Hot Rod and Motor Trend. Eventually, he returned to California. After attending the prestigious Art Center, he got a job in the booming aerospace industry. He also started contributing artwork to Hop Up magazine, and was hired as the graphics editor at Hop Up's offspring publication, Rod & Custom. In 1959, he became R&C's second editor, a position he held until 1961.
During Lynn's time as editor, R&C grew in size from the "little pages" digest format into a full-sized magazine. The editorial focus expanded as well under his imaginative and forward-thinking direction. He ran a story on a speed-record-breaking train and another on skydiving (the cover blurb said "0-120 and Stop in 12 Seconds" and the story caused a big stink with company management). He expanded the magazine's coverage of scale-model cars and slot cars, and introduced readers to Go-Karts and Mini-Bikes (both terms were Lynn Wineland inventions). The unorthodox choice of topics and the irreverent tone Lynn brought to R&C might meet with disapproval from some readers today-just like it did 50 years ago-but his philosophy, expressed to us when we interviewed him in 2003, was that if you're not having fun with the magazine, "there's no reason to do it."