- 1,112
- Rivera
- Tsukishima-TDUDT
This is the “Aerosport”, a creation by legendary coach-builder Steve Moal, based on a 1936 Ford. Steve started life by taking over his father’s collision repair shop, but in the late 90s he decided to leap to custom coach-work.
Steve Moal's idea for this car was a WWII pilot, returning home after the war. This pilot would enjoy speed and cars, but has spent his life flying planes. He can’t fly a P-51 Mustang around town, so he builds a car that gives him a similar feeling, inside and out.
To make that happen, Steve sourced a lot of the interior from a nearby aviation salvage yard. The switches, levers, gauges, wheel; if you blind-folded someone and put them in this, they’d probably think you’d put them inside a vintage plane. The gull-wing doors are opened with big, wooden handles that look like they came off an old butcher’s knife. Close them, and you are in a cockpit that just happens to be bolted to a car.
The outside is a simpler affair, but was no less work, because all the panels are hand-formed aluminum. The people at Moal Coachbuilders are masters of the English wheel, hand-rolling parts of the canopy, fender, trunk, and the bolt-on “tail”, should you need to smack people’s eyes with “this is like an airplane.”
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