Josh Harden, a Cranberry native who graduated from WyoTech in Blairsville, is the only one who works exclusively on custom projects. But when a customer came in not long ago with a GT3 R – Porsche’s $170,000 street version of a racecar – it was a hands-on, collaborative moment for the entire crew as they jumped at fixing the car’s state-of-the-art carbon body.  

"It was really important we had a few pairs of eyes on it," says Bill.  

He explains that while for him customizing has been a growing pursuit, the collision shop has remained his bread and butter, and he’s never lost site of that.  

For him, it’s a car lover’s dream come true, one that’s been made possible by his occupation.  

It’s also a dream that was nearly cut short at age thirteen. A one-time avid BMX bike racer, Bill was competing at races across the region, and on his way to one in Uniontown with his parents when a freak car accident took his father’s life, and nearly his own. Bill and his mother survived, only to watch Bill’s dad pass away.  

"A couple years after the devastation of watching my father pass, I started concentrating on cars and a career," he says.  

Bill finished technical school and landed a job at a shop in Castle Shannon, and then at another garage in McDonald. When he heard through a friend about a military contract to paint vehicles for Operation Desert Storm, he applied for and won it.  

Over the next three months, Bill worked nonstop through holidays and weekends, and used the money to outfit his father’s garage, which he’d bought from his mother, into an auto body shop. He renovated the space above it into an apartment, and in 1994 got busy repairing collisions. He learned the requisite business, money management, and customer service skills on the fly, and at night started doing custom work as an outlet. Burnt out from working on cars all day, he turned to motorcycles.  

"They have two wheels and a smaller engine and don’t take nearly as long to build," he says, "but I still ended up putting all kinds of extra time into them."

His first was a wrecked 1994 Harley Davidson that he pulled apart, in a way just so see how it went back together.  

Disassembling the bike, he painted the swing arm and frame, in addition to the tank and other traditionally decorated elements. Not long after, he found another wrecked Harley, this time a softail. He had a new custom frame built, and finished it with an orange pearl paint job and graphics. It turned heads instantly.  

He started a side business, Steele Kustoms, and began flipping about 10 of his rare and creative two-wheeled creations each year. Meanwhile, Steele Auto Body, Inc. was earning its own reputation, and outgrowing its space. In 1995, Bill took out a loan and expanded into a larger garage he built next door. A detailing and tire shop, Our Cars Auto Detailing, now operates out of Bill’s dad’s old shop, and is often the last stop for custom paint jobs before they roll out onto the street. Two such custom paint jobs went to North Fayette Township, in the form of their two first ever D.A.R.E. cars. 

With the shop paying the bills and providing a solid return, Bill allocated money into more ambitious projects, focusing on engineering and tight designs. That systematic, thought-out approach culminated in customs earning him his first magazine cover and awards from regional shows. In 2005, he finished a red and black bike that utilized a revolutionary front suspension system. The bike earned him the first ever Grand Master award from International Show Car Association, and an induction into the Autorama Hall of Fame. For a time, it went on loan to the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio, which displayed it as part of an art exhibit entitled, "Chopped! Art of the Custom Motorcycle."  

That same year, Bill got invited on ESPN2’s The $100,000 Bike Build-Off for a televised, custom bike-building contest. He came away with the Fascinator, a stretched-out, burnt orange creation that earned him his first Easyriders Bike of the Year award. He sold it to millionaire racehorse breeder Chad Hart.

After that, Bill found a 1951 Panhead that he restored and painted using a subdued, red patina matte paint with washes of black to make it look like it had just rolled out of the 1950s. Chad called Bill again after seeing the bike on the cover of Cycle Source Magazine, and convinced Bill to trade him back the Fascinator for it.  

"Chad had said, ‘I was born in ’51, and I had a bike just like that, but it wasn’t as nice as yours’," says Bill. "I thought about it, and figured I’d built the Fascinator on television, and it had been in all these ads for Velle tires, placed fifth in the AMD World Tour, been on the cover of Easyriders and I had so many other good times with that bike."  

He says he was excited to get it back. It’s one his few famous custom creations he still owns, but not the only one. A few years after building the Fascinator, he finally got around to scratch building that hot rod. He’d customized plenty of others along the way, and continued playing with matte earth tones to varying effects. He’d painted trucks with a brown patina to look like fading paint, and a couple of old cars to make them look dinged up and worn. He’d even turned to an unlikely inspiration in the home section at stores like Macy’s and home interior magazines.  

"I’ll go in and look around at bed spread colors and wall colors in the displays," he says. "I’ll get ideas about color trends and where they’re going."

So far, it’s paid off. A yellow road glide aptly named the Honey Bagger that was recently featured on the June cover of Baggers Magazine got him invited to a national Harley Davidson show. Showing off a technique of repurposing auto body parts, he constructed the Honey Bagger’s saddlebags from the rear fenders of a 1941 Mercury sedan. Another creation, The F2, an espresso-colored bike with matte silver wheels and a flash of green won him his second Easyriders Bike of the Year award.  

For that very first, scratch-built hot rod, he mixed up a custom matte leather brown to finish a chopped-up and stretched-out 1930 Ford Model A. He happened upon the cab when he met the owner of an Illinois-based custom shop, and had them build a new, stretched-out custom chassis. The collaborative project, which Josh had a hand in creating, won Bill an unexpected Goodguys Hot Rod of the Year award at the 2009 Hot Rod Nationals. It was featured on the covers of the hot rod magazines Goodguys Goodtimes Gazette, Streetrodder, Hot Rod, and the Norwegian hot rod magazine amcar. Bill says it also went on tour with Autorama as a featured car. Bill dubbed it "Downtown Brown." He still owns it, and is still wondering what amcar had to say about it, since he doesn’t know Norwegian.  

At his garage in the bend of Noblestown Road where Bill has quietly gathered awards, his collision shop bustles, and Josh is busy building several bikes while updating a burnt orange, 1949 Chevy truck into a hot rod for a customer. At times, Bill’s son, Billy, who will soon be starting college at the University of Cincinnati for Pharmacy, also lends a hand. A WA senior, Billy was co-captain of last season’s WPIAL-winning football team, which he played on with Derrick. Bill’s daughter, Kelly, another WA alum and former drum major, is now earning her master’s degree in theology at Duke.  

In 2011, Bill started chairing the annual Pittsburgh World of Wheels Custom Car Show. As part of the show last year, he hosted a competition between students from technical schools across the Pittsburgh region. He gave each team a Studebaker-style metal pedal car that they had to engineer into a new design. The end results included everything from ones with working taillights to others that were cut down the middle and stretched out for a new look. The cars were auctioned off, and the money donated to their respective schools.  

"They were awesome," says Bill. "I couldn’t have been more proud."  

He says he’s looking forward to chairing again next year with help from Marcia Hrapczak, his longtime friend and now girlfriend, and holding the same pedal car competition. Bill says the competition has since become part of ISCA’s touring show, which travels across the country.  

To see more of Bill’s work, check out www.steelekustoms.com and follow them on Facebook at Steele Kustoms / Steele Auto Body. Also see www.steeleautobodyinc.com for information on Steele Auto Body, Inc.