1954 Ford - Matt Noble & Mat Egan

Like so many others that gathered around Mat Egan’s 1954 Ford, it was the eye-popping paint job that first grabbed our attention. Not only is this a true street driven ride, it’s also an international pick. Owner Mat Egan, out of Melbourne, Australia, is no stranger to Kustom Kulture and is best known for builds like his shoebox with bare metal flames and the extreme talent he possesses with a striping brush–check out more here.
Having built a reputation for sporting some of the coolest customs around, this ’54  was originally owned by a mutual friend. Mat then handed over his new acquisition to Noble Fabrication out of Ventura to help blend his personal touches into the, at the time, Vanilla White custom.



The chop, section, and channel–6-inches, 3-inches, and 3-inches respectively was already in place, but it was the laid down rear glass and blend into the rear quarters that sealed the deal.

gnrs32Riding on airbag suspension you can see the ’54 sitting at rest. Dustin Phillips has the distinct job of caretaker for Mat’s ’54 while he’s bouncing back and forth from Australia, but while Mat is in town there are no boundaries for where they will take this beautiful ride.



After debuting it’s current look at last year’s Sacramento Autorama Mat took to the road. First stop was Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend, then Austin, Texas. From there he hit all points in between while cruising at more than 80 mph thanks to the freshly rebuilt Ford small block sporting Edelbrock aluminum heads helping keep up with the likes of Alex Gambino–who we were told “drives fast as sh*t”, but Mats ’54 had no problems keeping pace.



Sure there are several small items that stick out, the ’55 Mercury grill or the wide-whites and caps for instance, but it’s the one-two punch of eye catching paint and being driven hard daily that make this fifth pick outstanding.



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The Customline
While Jay Dean is a resident of California, and has been for many years, Mat Egan is an Australian custom painter who spends as much time in the Golden State as he can. On a trip to the U.S. a few years back, he got to know Matt Noble at Noble Fabrication in Ventura. While hanging out at the shop, he fell in love with the stance and attitude of a Merc built there, and asked if there were any other builds they'd done in a similar vein.

Noble showed him pictures of a Customline that a customer named Nikko had found as an unfinished project and then brought to Noble to be built. "The guys cut it all up again and built it into a wild custom that was screaming with attitude," Mat says. It sat virtually on the ground and was painted satin white–the perfect blank canvas! After around four years of bugging him to sell it, Mat finally got the call.

"So I sold my 1951 shoebox in Australia and jumped on a plane to seal the deal," he told us. "I hit the Grand National Roadster Show with it as it was, then got it back to a friend's shop and started laying out the paint to make it my own. The car was already finished and how I wanted it, so all it needed was what I knew how to do best–paint the crap out of it!"
He started by laying out the panels over the satin white base, using basecoat pearls and candies from House of Kolor, leaving the car in a suede look, before driving up to Sacramento Autorama to debut it in its new look. On his next trip over from Australia he clearcoated the car, then hit the road to Vegas and on to Austin, Texas, for the Lonestar Round Up. Not long after that, Gene Winfield presented Mat with his pick for an award at the West Coast Kustoms event in Santa Maria. "Being a custom painter and following his work for years meant it was a great honor to win his award," Mat states.

The Customline's stance is achieved with a Camaro front clip swap, and the use of Firestone airbags and KYB shocks at each corner, along with a stepped rear chassis. Noble Fabrications handled this, plus the bodywork. No small list, this includes channeling the body 4 inches over the frame, removing the rocker panels and replacing them with flat plate, rounding the hood and door corners, and adding Oldsmobile taillights. Then there's the not-so small job of chopping the roof 5 inches, including recessing the rear glass into the body. A 1956 Merc gave up its grille.

While the front clip may be from a Camaro, a 302 Ford powers the sled, machined, balanced, and blueprinted by Ron Williams Machine in Ventura. It now benefits from a mild cam, Edelbrock aluminum cylinder heads, and a Holley 750 on an Edelbrock Performer intake. A good old C4 auto trans sends the power rearward, through a modified Ford driveshaft.
Inside, Mooneyes gauges, a custom console, and a Thunderbird steering wheel are complemented by a retrim in black and white leather over the stock seats. The finished interior was no doubt appreciated by the "clan of Aussies" that rode with Mat on that trip to Texas "tagging along with a bunch of other cool kustoms for a road trip I'll never forget."