Remembering Moonglow...

well,probably everyone on this board remembers the custom 54 chevy by Duane Steck...it was personally my 1st and favorite custom i got drooling after years ago..i was going back through past posts looking for a thread on the glass that's recommended for chop-tops and i kept finding references to Moonglow..who knew that such a relatively MILD custom could still inspire so many of us today?there are also too many people who dont know that the poor thing was crushed,or they dont know what kinda rear window went in her,or the fact that Larry Watson did the 1st pinstriping on her!!well,over the years i've gathered some cool facts/pictures of her,and SOMEWHERE i found a scrapbook of the build.so i'm gonna post it here,for all those who care.if this is a repost,i'm sorry,i just figured that some people would dig seeing this if they havent already.if it has been covered before,i apologize and just ignore me...i'll have to post em on photobucket...too big to just post..hope this works
creepy

http://photobucket.com/Moonglow54

 

It says I need to signin from that post, but I'd like to see more pics of this custom. I heard the rear window was plexi, is that correct?

 

yup, need a password.

 

No, what he needs to do is go in the accessability options under his username and change it to allow visitors, i had the same problem

 

booh this is beat...

 

The best article Ive ever read in a magazine pertaining to custom cars was Pat Ganahls about Tony Feils Charlie Brewer built Moonglow clone in the Rodders Journal.

 

what's this scrapbook you mentioned? you mean you have THE scrapbook?

like said above, you need to make your album public. or give us the password so we can hijack it and post obscene stuff.

 

no,i dont have THE scrapbook,but it's an article that has pages from the scrapbook (which was illustrated by Steck) i think i fixed it to make it public so now if you guys click the link you can see the pix..sorry about the trouble..this was a 5 AM on a slow crappy computer post...
creepy

 

yay very unbeat now!!! awesome pics. btw there was a moonglow clone @ lead east 03 i believe...really nice car, i had a few too many though, dont remember all the details. dont know if its the one anthony is talking about.

 

yep!

 

Thanks for sharing this.The Moonglow Chevy is really a nice one and I wouldn't call it a mild Custom.Body mods are extensive.The car might be "mild" in appearance though.From what I know the rear glass was plexi.It simply is a well done '54 Chevy.Here's another pic with none other than Duane Steck himself...

 

Thanks for doing this; it's interesting to review the car's several iterations. It's interesting that Duane was apparently indecisive at times; one of the pictures shows it pre-chop, pre-paint, with hooded headlights. Later pictures show it chopped and painted white with frenched Ford headlight rings (no hoods now), and still later ones show it in blue with hoods again.

I agree that it was nicest in its white version. What a shame it got squashed!

 

Great...

thank you for posting.

 

I think leaving the Belair trim on was a wise decision. I like it. Why did it get crushed?

 

well,the version that captured MY heart was the one that was on the cover of Car Craft..basically stock with a chop and shaved doors with fins added..the later versions i guess you could say more "radical"...personally,i think Duane was just a whore to whatever was big in customizing at the time..scallops,flake,etc..i figure if he'd kept it awhile longer he woulda stuck a big block in there with slicks!oh well..if you'd read the article on my page,it said that Duane and his brother burned their hands on the rear window taking it from the oven to the car,so i'm guessing it was plexi,seeing as how everyone LOVED plexi back then (it's all over that issue) and it's funny that in the how-to-chop article it says to add a strip of steel between the deck and the package tray to make up for the front of the roof bein moved forward..but if you look at side-shots of Moonglow,you'll see that they just angled the plexi funny and didnt make up the difference! still awesome,though..why was she crushed? cuz she was traded and then stripped and someone who didnt appreciate her let her go...personally,they'd have to crush ME to get my car,but that's me..anyone else notice that EVERY time the car was stripped down to primer they used a different color primer for where the handles went?like they JUST shaved the handles off,even though it was done 4 or 5 paint jobs ago...glad to see how many people appreciate this thread..i thought i was just postin my personal favorite car as for seein clones,i've seen so many,i've lost count!i got some pix of those but was too lazy to add them to my photobucket pix..i might add them later,though,if anyone wants to see em
creepy

 

I found another pic of the early version and just wanted to include it in here...

 

from what little i know about the car, steck traded the car for a sports car of some sort, getting out of the kustom scene, and the car ended up in bad hands.

 

bringing this thread back to life cause it rocks and so does the moonglow

 

When I was 14/15 years old I used to help detail the Moonglow for car shows ,Steve Steck Duanes younger brother was one of my best friends. I lived with the steck family for a couple years. The back glass was plexy glass. Dont think Duane was a (Whore) to style He was a very talented artist he designed the Glow and did a lot of the original work on the car. The first white paint job was done by Earl Shieb (Duane preped the car and gave the painter a bottle of JB to take extra time with it.) Larry Watson did pinstripe it. It later went to silver Duane designed the scollops and had Larry paint them. The last paint was Candy blue which Larry Painted.Duane gave the car to Seve who traded it in on a Bugeye Sprite you have to remember Customs were really fading out of style in the 60s I could have bought the car for 500.00 hindsight eh, I used to have a lot of pictures but have lost them ofver the years. hope this answers some of the questions.

 

hi chis the car you are talking about is tony,s he goes to lead east every year it,s one of the best clone,s of the moonglow

 

yeah,that IS a great clone!i'm glad yall decided to bring this thread back.i had a hardrive crash recently and couldnt save all the pix i'd put on the site,so it was very fortunate i had uploaded em cuz i have NO idea where i stumbled onto that journal!
creepy

 

Here's a old b@w with Duane showing it's winning abilty.

TwoChops

 

Let's s give credit where it is due, regarding the clone. Tony Feil owns it, and takes VERY good care of it, but we gotta give props to the builder....Choptop Charlie Brewer! Guy is a genius with a torch!
Also, Bill Layman, the guy who brought back the Appleton spotlights (Kustom Kraft), also built a pretty nifty version...not a clone, but a similarly styled car, in bright blue. He's another car-building GOD. Restored the original Fred Rowe Merc a few years after the 54.
Moonglow, one of my first loves!

 

I love this car. The best. 1st version was perfect. Better than the Hirohata Merc for me. Balance. Restraint. Proportion. I heard it was stolen and found on the side of the road, wrecked. Sad ending. Any truth?

 

I'm betting that they HAD to keep repriming those areas because the lacquer primer was constantly shrinking, showing the areas of repair.

My favorite version is when it was silver with Watson's "Watson" scallops.

Reverend Jake

 

I'll give you 54 boys a tip. a 55-57 chev pickup windshield fipped upside down and trimmed, fits a chopped ber aire hardtop almost perfect! I did one about ten year ago. had to modify the body about 3/8 of inch on the curve on the bottom

 

..what's a ber aire?
creepy

 

High lander onehalf truth the Moonglow was stolen once Duanes dad drove the car to the supermarket one time and left the keys on the floor two jail excapees took the oppertunity to drive off in it. All of Duanes friends were looking all over So Cal for it. It was stopped at the boarder. No too bright to steal such a conspicious car I would think. Luckily there was no damage to the Glow

 

Dont let this tread die! I have mad respect for Charlie, and Paul..

 

This one belongs to a good friend of mine and he built with the moonglow in mind