Terry Cook has always loved cars. But unlike most four-wheel fanatics, he doesn’t care much about what he drives. His passion is design.
Cook designs custom cars and sells them for six-figure sums to collectors at auctions around the world. His creations are low-slung and sensual, with swooping, tear-drop fenders and eye-popping color combinations.
“Styling has always been my deal,” says the 82-year-old Cook, who lives in Chester with his wife, Virginia.
Cook recalls making images of cars “as soon as I could draw.” As a teen, he got a job as a flagman at Island Dragway in Great Meadows and soon acquired his first Model A Ford hot rod.
After studying engineering at Lehigh, Cook lit out for car-crazy California in 1964, where he covered the automotive world for Car and Driver magazine and other publications. Drawn to the Art Deco-inspired classic cars of the 1930s, Cook resolved to design more affordable versions. First, he sketches out his vision, then a professional creates a rendering. Next, a craftsman builds what’s known as a buck, similar to a dress form, and a fiberglass mold is cast.
Cook’s biggest success, based on the Lincoln Zephyr, a rakish, pre-World War II luxury model, sold at auction in 1999 for $275,000. Next, he produced fiberglass Zephyr bodies and sold them for about $15,000 as kit cars—without motors or transmissions—to collectors from Australia to Slovenia.
Cook also created fiberglass kit cars based on the 1937 Bugatti Type 57 and the 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster. He has also sold completed versions of his kit cars; one fiberglass Bugatti went for $220,000.
Another Cook creation was Lead East, the giant car show and celebration of 1950s culture that he launched in 1983. Cook sold Lead East in 2019, but the extravaganza still attracts thousands to Parsippany each Labor Day weekend.
Perhaps Cook’s best deal—and a favorite of his two sons (now grown)—was a license he granted to Mattel to make a Hot Wheels version of his Zephyr. “My children were impressed that they could walk into a Walmart and buy Dad’s car,” he says.
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