MOONEYES 25TH ANNIVERSARY

PETE CHAPOURIS . January 17, 2023 . All Feature Vehicles

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MOONEYES 25TH ANNIVERSARY HOT ROD CUSTOM SHOW

Twenty five years at anything is a milestone in my book, especially in the custom automotive business. So much of what we do is so damn “trendy” and staying up with (much less ahead of) it is almost impossible. But our friends at Mooneyes have not only kept up, they are actually ahead of the curve, and just celebrated a major anniversary.

The show is also considered the world’s largest custom motorcycle event, held in conjunction with the car side. This year SO-CAL was asked to participate with our British Racing Green Track Roadster “SIROD II”, the car I built for my dad in 1976 and gave it to him at the L.A. Roadsters Show that same year.

Along with our entry were Gene Winfield and his stunning full custom ’52 Chevy, “Desert Sunset”, and the Galpin Ford restored Ed Roth “Orbitron”. Nice array of cool stuff. Mooneyes never, I say, never disappoints!

I picked this stunning ’40 Ford Pickup Truck as my favorite hot rod and what I would choose to take to take home. The truck was built in Japan and is owned by Yuki Inaba.

Shige Suganuma, owner of Mooneyes, kneeling next to one of the most famous Bonneville race cars, the Robert “Jocko” Johnson-built Moonliner.

Rare photo of Mooneyes USA manager Chico Kodama, my wife Carol, and Sandy Kodama before the trek to see the Big Buddha. The photo’s rare because the workaholic Chico is kicking back and laughing!

The Yokohama Show has had an impact worldwide. While the rest of the world was falling all over themselves following the “fat rear tire trend” our guys were quietly keeping the faith. Mooneyes is based in Japan, but they and a few hardcore American bike builders like Cole Foster, Jeff Leighton, The Harpoon, “Rico” Fodrey, Jeff Decker, Bryan Thompson, and Max Schaaf have re-kindled the traditional custom motorcycle phenomenon. What’s more phenomenal is realizing the show has only been open to bikes for 11 years, and now it consumes half of the 215,000 available square footage—500 bikes and 500 cars. Also I might add that Mooneye’s “El Jefe” Shige Suganuma and crew have added numerous vendors and, as I mentioned earlier, custom car and bike builder celebrities to the list of growing show attractions.

The show featured bikes from all over the world and visitors as well. People were queued up at 6:00 am for one day, eight hours on the first Sunday in December. They even ran out of tickets. That’s what I call a success!