Coachbuilding from Auto Aficionado

STREET RODS AS SCULPTURE MICHAEL DOBRIN brings us inside Steve Moal's coachbuilding studio The author and RON KIMBALL share digital studies of the sculpture

It's a rather non-descript building in the Northern California Bay Area city of Oakland on East 12th Street. But once inside the grillwork doorway, cognoscenti can quite easily conjure up the great coachbuilding enterprises of Europe in the last century. Were it not for the evidence of modern tools and safety considerations, Steve Moal's coachwork facility could easily comprise a time-warped version of the shopworks, men and projects associated some 70 years past with carrozzeria Touring, Gurney-Nutting, Figoni et Falaschi, Pinin Farina, Vanden Plas, Scaglietti or Castagna. But projects here transcend a strictly defined European heritage. They reflect disparate motoring disciplines with provenances from European formula and sports racers, open-wheeled Indy racers, and American hot rods. There are 1932 Ford roadster bodies on Moal's thoughtfully-engineered Road Champ chassis. An immaculately-restored and recently painted Ferrari 275 GTB shell occupies one corner awaiting reinstallation of everything from wheels to seats to engine and driveline. The elegant, hand-crafted deep blue and silver Art Deco Aghassi Royale roadster is being finished for California automobile dealer Hank Torian. Some projects are but bare chassis, revealing race-bred suspension systems. Others – without hoods or engine bay panels – showcase an array of big-pony powerplants; Ferrari V-12s, Joehnck Chevy V-8s, Ardun Fords, Nailhead Buicks. Some vehicles are sheathed in sculpted aluminum panels 'in white,' awaiting paint. Fabricators, constructors and assemblers wield torches and tools, each addressing some phase of production. As in photos from those great European houses, there's an air of organized chaos here. The Moal works occupy a garage which was his father's body and fender business in the mid-1940s. The site also reflects a century of Moal family dedication to the motoring arts in Oakland, California. "My grandfather William was a wheelwright in Brest, France, in the late 19th Century," notes the silver haired 60-year-old Moal. "As an apprentice, he lived on a farm and paid his way, making wooden wheels for room and board. It was love that brought him to America. My grandmother, who was from Berkeley and studying French in Paris, met him there, married and brought him back to California." That William Moal was attracted to automotive work in the East Bay would be the natural outgrowth of industrial expansion in the Oakland of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Terminus of the transcontinental railway in the 1860s, Oakland grew around manufacturing, shipping and world trade. By World War One, the region had become the "Detroit of the West," with Durant and Chevrolet plants in Oakland, a major Ford assembly operation in nearby Richmond, Hall-Scott Motors in Berkeley – all spawning a network of fabricators and suppliers. Residential development and a new highway system spurred enthusiasm for the automobile. Moal's Auto Metal Works was one of dozens of small garages serving the growing trade. William Moal did body and fender work, along with wheel and radiator repair. The Moal flair for unique coachwork might have begun with William Moal's creation of a custom body – the Battistini – on a 1922 Buick chassis. "It was hard work then," Moal says. "He and my grandmother had nine kids. He even made stills during Prohibition. My dad, George, continued in the business and moved his body and fender operation into this building in 1946. He was attracted to big American cars; Duesenbergs, Auburn Speedsters, Murphy-bodied cars from Pasadena, Indy race cars. "He inherited and learned my grandfather's woodworking skills and loved speedboats – maybe even more than cars. He fabricated metal cowlings, seat backs and fin tails on boats like Len Gradetti's 'California Kid'. In those days they formed metal with peen hammers on shot-filled sandbags; they didn't use the English wheel like we do today. But again it was hard work and times were lean – I remember my dad coming home for dinner, then going back to work."