Dean Moon

Dean Moon (May 1, 1927 – June 4, 1987) was an American automobile designer.

Biography Moon grew up in Norwalk, California, and was around cars and racing from his youth. His father owned "Moon Café" and had a go-kart track he called "Moonza", a pun on Monza. Dean was involved in dry lakes hot-rodding in the late 1940s. He founded MOON Speed Equipment (c.1950) and worked to improve the quality and safety of speed and racing products his entire life.

Moon was one of the founding members of Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association in 1963.

Dean Moon was a hot-rodder and innovator of speed parts. He built and raced cars from El Mirage Dry Lake and Bonneville Salt Flats to the drag strips and beyond, and established a company that became well known in the hot rodding industry. Starting his business from modest beginnings in a garage behind his father's Moon Café in Norwalk, he grew it into an internationally recognized brand name. Early products were a multi-carb fuel block, spun aluminum wheel discs, aluminum gas tanks and a foot-shaped throttle pedal. Products carrying the Moon name, including the Moon disc wheel covers and Moon Tank auxiliary fuel containers, were very popular, and Moon Equipment's bright-yellow show cars and drag cars were used as prototypes for Hot Wheels toys. ), then as exhibition car shows after it retired from racing. The car made a comeback in England in 1963 driven by Dante Duce. In 1964 Duce won the Brighton Speed Trials in the Moonbeam, a Devin-bodied sports car equipped with a supercharged Chevrolet V-8 motor.

Moon Speed Equipment temporarily "paused" after Dean died in 1987, then appeared to shut down after Dean Moon's wife died. In the early 1990s, Shige Suganuma (a long time Mooneyes dealer from Japan and close family friend of Moon) restarted the company as MOONEYES USA which continues to carry on the traditions of Dean Moon today, including the Mooneyes Hot Rod & Custom Show in Yokohama, Japan.