Meet Ben Tuna, the man turning torched Porsches into stained-glass art

CALIFORNIA – Ben Tuna is good at transforming rusted-out, patina-eaten wrecks into art.

For the past few months, in a nondescript stucco warehouse in a sleepy street in Glendale, California, he has used stained glass salvaged from sanctuary tableaus to rebuild the windows of a 1965 Porsche 911 he found derelict in Ohio.

Once empty, the frames are now filled with palm-size fragments of centuries-old church glass that glow like a sacred kaleidoscope. Halo-clad seraphim in verdant robes grace the rear of the car, the cameo face of a bearded prophet in deep repose appears at shotgun. 

In the past weeks, though, the second-generation stained-glass artist has been alchemising something that hits closer to home: vintage classics torched in the Los Angeles fires in January and left for junk. 

“When the fire happened, I started seeing all these great cars on Instagram, and I knew they’d just be thrown away,” says Tuna, 30. “I was, like, ‘I have to intercept some of these. I can do something so cool with them.’”

Now, with the melodies of American jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery wafting through the wooden rafters of his Glass Cowboy shop and an assistant working quietly nearby, Tuna is adding reclaimed glass to a 1965 Porsche 356 that burned in the Palisades – near pink hibiscus blooms, the hand of a saint reaching heavenwards through golden fleur-de-lis and dark roundels. 

“My dad was an incredible artist,” Tuna says. “I got my colour knowledge from him. It’s my colour selection, my use of colour and material, that separates my work from everyone else’s.”

He displayed his initial Porsche 911 publicly for the first time at the Motorluxe gala on Aug 13, during Monterey Car Week in Carmel, California.

The Porsche 356, to be unveiled to the public at a later date, is the first of at least four LA fire cars he will recast as art pieces to sell. The series is not about restoration. It is called Resurrection. 

Tuna is an unexpected player in the ancient trade of stained glass. It certainly was not because his father pressured him to take over Glass Visions Studio, the business he founded in 1979.

“He still tells me, ‘I don’t want you in this business. This is a dirty business, a nasty business. You could do so many greater things,’” Tuna says.

Working in the studio as a teen and seeing his dad create masterpieces in the premier architectural and historic estates of Bel Air and Beverly Hills – only to remain in obscurity – drove home the point.

In most architectural and interior magazines, the craftsperson who fabricates stained glass for a light-filled entryway or dazzling rotunda goes uncredited in lieu of the name-brand designer or decorator hired to oversee the work.

Glass artisans are often overlooked among dozens of skilled workers on-site or intentionally gate-kept to prevent poaching by higher-paying clients. 

“I always had a problem with dedicating yourself to something that is underappreciated, and that’s the whole craft of stained glass,” Tuna says. “My dad made thousands of windows over his career, and how many of those people know who he is? Not many.” 

So, the younger Tuna went a different route, earning a teaching degree in Seattle and cutting hair to make ends meet before taking a job doing special effects at film studio Warner Bros in Burbank.

Then, in 2020, one month into winning the bid for a massive overhaul of the Playboy Mansion, the elder Tuna suffered a debilitating stroke.

“Someone’s got to do this,” Ben Tuna recalls thinking. “The money that we make from this business supports the family: my sister’s college, my parents’ groceries.” 

With his dad in critical condition at the hospital, the younger Tuna quit his job and took over the Playboy Mansion project. 

He had already learnt the fundamentals of the trade, such as hand-drawing concepts with coloured pencils; sourcing the highest-quality glass; using centuries-old knives; varying tension on the blade as he cut, based on colour, width and quality; floating the solder to create a perfect seam; and installing 80-pound pieces in the gilded estates of LA’s undulating hills.

Five years of nights, weekends and extreme focus later, Tuna finished the work his father initiated. He ultimately completed more than the initial project stipulated, installing roughly 250 windows in total throughout the Holmby Hills mansion, now owned by private equity heavyweight Daren Metropoulos.

“They gave me the platform to trust my instinct,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Here’s a closet. Let’s do something cool.’ That gave me a lot of confidence.”

Now, Tuna oversees a handful of employees and hundreds of installs a year in homes from Hancock Park to Malibu. Wait times can stretch six months. 

Powerball winner and car collector Edwin Castro is a childhood friend and an enthusiastic early client. He commissioned Tuna to create a wall-size wavy glass mural that would throw blue and orange light across an entire room of his seaside abode, which has since been lost to the fires.

“I’m blown away by the intensity of interest,” says Valerie Tuna, Ben’s mother. “It’s fascinating: I’ve been married to a fabulous artist, and there was no interest except for in very small circles. Ben has broken through the stained-glass ceiling.” 

Conjuring such beauty takes a toll. Tuna often cuts his hands, but the greater pain comes from losing fragile work. “With glass, you break it, you’re done, start over,” he says. “There’s no room for redo, there’s no room for try again. You have one shot.”

Lead permeates everything, from the centuries-old scenes to the newer pieces. The paint, stains, minerals and assorted chemicals can be toxic too.

“It’s bad for your health, and it hurts your body and fights you,” says Tuna, adding that recent tests have indicated heightened levels of lead in his blood. “It’s almost like being a miner. You’ve got this great fortune that you could make, but you’re also sacrificing your health.” 

The price of the materials alone would discourage dilettantes. A single crumbling church window can cost US$5,000 (S$6,400) to US$250,000 or more, while decomposing air-cooled Porsches cost thousands of dollars – even the engine-less ones. 

Which brings one back to the rusted-out husks.

Tuna’s car work represents a pivot from the jobs in private homes, and the occasional church or temple, that have been his company’s primary focus. Created under his Glass Cowboy brand, the Porsches embody his determination to continue what had been his father’s chosen path while fashioning it into something of his own. 

Making vibrant doors and intricate accent balconies pays the rent and keeps food on the table, but it does not ignite his passion. The cars, on the other hand, are greater than the sum of their parts, since they combine the classical training Tuna received from his dad with his own signature skill, talent and vision.

“I never loved this work, and that’s why I’m doing stuff now that’s not traditional,” he says. “There are like 50 years of work in these cars, and I’ve been alive for only 30. That is what excites me.”

The more patina – and patron saints – the better. BLOOMBERG