If he attended Bellflower High School in Bellflower, CA (and that seems likely with all the custom car activity surrounding that high school in the 1950's), he was alive as of 2001. The school's unofficial historian for that time period is Johnnie Woldridge. His email is jwoldridge@tds.net. This guy should be a HAMBer! (maybe he is?) Read this: http://www.bellfloweralumni.com/johnwoldridge.html Good stuff! At any rate, I'm sure this Mr. Woldridge would know if Bellflower's Duane Steck is one and the same since Mr. Woolridge was a custom car guy, too. He would also know if Mr. Steck is still alive and how to contact him.
I like the silver version with scallops the best also. Looks like the interior stayed the same during all the different paint schemes?
In Muncie IN during the late 50, early 60 time frame there was a white 2dr ht, 53,54 chevy or poncho that looked almost identical to the moonglo. The differences were the Muncie car had bubble skirts, 2 spots, 2 mirrors, and 2 antena and lance 4 bar spinners on the front. It was a beautiful car and appeared to be a daily driver. I never saw the car after about 61 or 62. Anyone know anything about it?
yea this is what i mean....only 1 car how did he do it...i eat,breath,shit custom cars..would be hard to walk away from it
This looks to be him. Steck, in the Moonglow, hung out at the Bellflower Clock Drive-in according to Larry Watson (source: Classic Customs and Leadsleds, by Bo Bertilsson, page 24).
jim mcneil bought the hirohata for $500. thats after all the magazine coverage and trophys. i think your right, they were old, out of date, dinosaurs. hard to imagine. the moonglow to me is something special because it was home built by some kids in a driveway. no barris, bailon, winfield, or valley customs. just the desire to own a cool car and the willingness to give it a try. there are many "clones" or close copys of the moonglow. there's just something missing. there are a few clones of the hirohata and the matranga, pretty much dead on. the same look, not so with the moonglow.
Food for thought. Some people value their privacy, I would think with all the hype about cars today in the media he knows but doesn't care about what is going on car wise. I was away from cars for over 25 years before getting back into it. Just a couple of the things I did was, I ran bear hounds (I always liked hunting) and I bred, raised and showed Appaloosa horses. I wouldn't especially appreciate someone digging up my contact info to bother me about something I'm no longer into.
I work with Steve Cook who is the grandson of Ben Cook the welder that did all the cutting and welding on moonglow. The shop was in Bellflower and Steve still has the shop(not open to hte public) and still builds an occasional car for himself. Steve was very young when his grandfather did the work on Moonglow,but as far as he can remember Duane never built any other complete builds,but fooled around with cars...
Seems to me that I remember something in a Magazine, maybe TRJ a while back about Duane coming to an event, maybe the Barris Kustom thingy at the NHRA museum. Hope I'm not hallucinating. BB
I know that he was to attend the Bellflower High School 50th Anniversary Classic Car Show on April 28, 2001. It appears that he was a participant with a car in the show, as he was preregistered.
Bob I saw that to it was a picture of him and Watson and that Larry returned the moonglow prop book to him at the event.
A while back on another Moonglow thread, someone reported seeing the car being crushed and managed to salvage one of the vent windows which were supposed to have been blue plexiglass.
Looks like the vent windows were blue. Back then, in Michigan at least, Blue glass was real big. They used glass made for tour busses. There were different versions available too. One was two thicknesses of regular safety glass with a blue film in between, one was a layer of blue glass and a layer of clear glass and I think the third, which was really dark was two layers of the blue glass. I've been looking for this stuff for a long time and posted this info quite a few years ago here. Wonder if anyone knows of any of this stuff being available.
I think that Moonglow is (was) just perfect. I love the smooth line of it. Its not to complicated and a fact that was builded by a guy on the street its all making it very special. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> Chopped hardtop, frenched lights, lowered suspension and some other things and you have perfect receipt for one of the nicest customs ever. <o></o> This is why when I had an opportunity to buy similar one builded by Richard Glymps I just did that and now I very happy about it.
Ron Courtney, who built X-51 in the mid/later 50s here and still lives here in McMinnville did the same. Built one car, made magazine covers, won sweepstakes awards, wowed the entire country (world)) at the time, traded the car off for a 'Vette and simply walked away. Probably one of the best known shoe box Fords ever. He won't even talk about it now. He drives a funky little chinese electric 3 wheeled car now with stick on graphics, you wouldn't know that he ever did anything of the sort. The current owner went to his house once with the restored car, drove there from California. Wanted pics of him with the car, to talk and to take him for a ride. He politely said NO, closed the door and the owner, most likely dumfounded, had to drive back to Cali!! I would love to just sit and BS with him, but he doesn't want to. I dated his daughter for a couple years in high school - I never even knew he was the cat that built it til she told me her dad had built 'some old car' at one time. I about*****e when I saw the albums. I wanted him to sign a magazine I had pirated from my brother, nuthin' doin'. Tried again when the car was on the R/C top ten poster many moons ago, nope. He actually went into a tirade about "gawd damned old*****, etc etc..." I don't get it, I don't understand it, can't even comprehend it, but more power to him. It's his life I figure. I, like you eat sleep and breathe the stuff, but obviously they don't treasure the very existance of it like us. I for one, however - am darned glad they built 'em and thank them deeply for doing it and for creating those incredible hunks of iron and lead. Tim
Last night I could not sleep and did a search on google for something custom cars and came across a site with a lot of old Lake Race photos and a few old custom cars... one of them was this great photo of teh Moonglow in its Candy Blue.... WOW Folow the linkt to see some more... mostly Hot Rods and Lake racers... and you have to scroll down a bit to get past the new stuff. http://www.bannerbob.net/Old%20Cars.htm
I saw the Moonglow at a show around 1960. It was still white, that should narrow the time frame down. Fell in love! I have a '54 hardtop out in my yard, had it for forty years, when i squint up and stare long enough, it looks just like my lost love. (How pathetic is that?!) I have added 14 more grille teeth, found some '54 Merc headlight rings to french in. A 350/350 and a '57 4.11 Posi with chrome reverse's should cruise nice, but it ain't Moonglow!!
Not to Hijack the thread but did anyone else notice this. The captions say that the guy looking up is Clive Cussler. Isn't that the author of that series of Ocean base thrillers that lives in Colorado now and has a fantastic car collection? Just wondering BB
it's official, this is my new favorite version of the moonglow! thanks rikster. how many clive cusslers can there be? that almost has to be him. interesting.
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