The automotive world is brim-full of car customizers. Whether it be a solo enthusiast, personalizing his daily, or an established organization charging top dollar to re-shape, re-spray and modernize a muscle car, car customization is big business. For every company that’s taken the time to build a car, you can be sure there’s a thousand guys or girls with ideas on how to make it look cooler.

In fact, an entire industry has developed in support of the passion and fixation for turning a regular car into something unique, of giving your car a life and personality that echoes your own and of making a statement about your style and technical prowess through your car.

A recent statement released by AutomotiveAftermarket.org suggests that the US aftermarket sector is currently worth a whopping $281 billion annually, and will enjoy a projected growth of 3% through 2023. The need for supply seems endless and the appetite for the expansion of that creative palate continues to swell.

Are you finding all modified cars boring? Read on to learn about this carmaker. 

Restomods And New Builds

But what if you’re not looking for a chopped ’49 Mercury or a restomodded ’72 Pontiac GTO? What if, when you look at customized cars, all you get is that been-there-done-that feeling? What if that massive amount of folding money in your pocket is demanding something truly unique?

The world of bespoke, one-off, custom car building is a far smaller one. For starters, there are an ever-decreasing number of artisans who are actually skilled enough in the use of the English Wheel, the Planishing and Power Hammers, the Shaping Station, the Shrinkers and Stretchers, and the never-ending list of hand tools, needed in converting flat sheet metal into never-before-seen, sensuous and symmetrical body panels. Secondly, the tens of thousands of hours – builders often talk about a project taking anywhere from three to six years – make for hefty price tags.

Dave Kindig is reported to be charging an estimated $300k for a full Muscle Car restomod. Chip Foose, however, is estimated to have asked more than five times that amount for his award-winning re-imagined ’37 Ford Roadster, Impression. Building a top-draw one-off is the heady pursuit of the super-rich, executed by the insanely talented.

Enter the guy most folks have never heard of. Steve Moal is one such genius. Steve’s grandfather, William, himself a skilled metalworker, immigrated to the US from France. His father, George was then infused with that talent and passed them on to Steve.

In keeping these hard-fought, indescribably gifted hand skills in the family, Steve Moal’s wife and children work with him at Steve Moal Coachbuilders, designing, engineering and fabricating some of the custom car industry’s most beautiful one-offs.

RELATED: These Are The 10 Coolest Cars Built By Chip Foose

Based in Oakland, California, the soft-spoken, lime-light avoiding car nut has built a reputation among collectors, enthusiasts and fellow builders alike as a creative colossus with fanatical attention to detail.

The Aircraft-inspired Ford Aerocoupe

Gull-wing doors, regular doors and a hand-crafted body
Via: Hemmings

Top of the Steve Moal hit parade, in our humble opinion, is the 1930s aviation-inspired 1936 Ford Aerocoupe. More than just a slightly reshaped classic, the chassis is built in-house. Every panel of the Aerocoupe’s body has been hand fabricated. The overall design called for the cab to be moved back in the body meaning, less truck and more hood.

The two-tone, brushed-aluminum vs. gunmetal grey body panels swoop, elegantly over the wheels. In profile, the ratio of roof to body – the streamlined roofline – gives the Aerocoupe purpose and power.

The Aerocoupe is somewhat of a shape-shifter thanks to removable body panels. Design features include a lift-off hardtop, gullwing doors, an aluminum tonneau cover and removable wheel disc covers.

Art Deco meets minimalist WW2 Bomber
Via: Live.Staicflickr

Aircraft-style gauges dominate the dash. Brushed aluminum, ‘drilled-for-lightness’ panels pair beautifully with the hand-stitched, grid-patterned straps on the hand-stitched, chocolate brown, leather seats. Exposed, enlarged rivets are an Art Deco wonder-touch. It’s a mind-blowing combination of wonderfully intricate detail and sublime minimalism.

The Ferrari-esque Gatto

Ferrari meets Merc SL meets Grand Prix Maserati
Via: Googleusercontent

Next up is the Gatto. Based visually and mechanically on a 1960s Ferrari but with added visual cues from a number of other manufacturers’ classic, sledgehammer designs. Once again, the chassis is a semi-monocoque with riveted and glued stressed panels and is built specifically for this car.

RELATED: These Are The Sickest Custom Cars Built By Ed Roth

The aluminum bodywork is molded and fashioned into stunning exterior design touches. The Mercedes Benz SL-like fender vents compliment the profile and the beautiful circular grille – a throwback to early Maserati Grand Prix cars – gives the Gatto gravitas. The subtle fender creases impart a sense of pace and power, even while standing still. And the graceful, integrated topside cabin ventilation ducts, swim ingeniously in the valley of the double-bubbled roof.

Mechanically, the Gatto sports a prancing horsepower plant. But the 300hp from the Ferrari 250 GTO engine is secondary to the aural and visual statements made by the 3l V12. This car is automotive art, its actual performance is almost irrelevant.

Less is more inside the Gatto
Via: wpengine.netdna-ssl.com

The list of awards Steve Moal has taken home includes America’s Most Beautiful Roadster – AMBR, and Street Rod – AMBSR. He’s also clinched the Sweepstakes Rod at Blackie Gejeian’s Fresno Autorama and the Yosemite Sam Award at the Detroit Autorama.

TV reality shows, and the traditional automotive media, have vaulted the names of Boyd Coddington and Chip Foose into the automotive aftermarket lexicon. And rightly so. Their work is inspired and timeless. But Steve Moal belongs in those same conversations. Now, reportedly in semiretirement, he continues to oversee his family’s wonderful work. The Moal clan are now four generations deep, imagineering, fabricating and engineering achingly beautiful custom build cars.

NEXT: 10 Facts About Alvis, One Of The Most Obscure Carmakers Ever