Chip Foose

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Smoking Tire – Episode Featuring Chip Foose

Release Date: May 1, 2025

Hosts: Matt Farah and Zack Klapman

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Introduction to Chip Foose

In this episode of The Smoking Tire, hosts Matt Farah and Zack Klapman welcome automotive legend Chip Foose to the studio. With an illustrious career spanning nearly five decades, Chip is renowned for designing hundreds of custom cars, winning multiple Riddler Awards, and being named "Builder of the Decade" by the Grand National Roadster Show.

Matt Farah [00:02]:
"This guy has built hundreds and hundreds of cars. He has multiple Riddler Awards, multiple Grand National Roadster Show winner... he is in fact truly legendary."

Early Career and SEMA Experiences [02:07 – 10:00]

Chip delves into his early days in the automotive industry, recounting his first experiences at the SEMA Show in 1985. He worked with OSHA Corporation, designing the Girodisc—a positraction system now standard in every Jeep.

Chip Foose [04:11]:
"If you got into a slippery situation, the other wheel would take over and you could find traction."

Chip discusses his role as a designer tasked with generating innovative ideas, one of which led to the creation of HomeLink, the integrated garage door opener system.

Chip Foose [07:08]:
"We developed the idea of integrating that button into the car... we got the patent, and we sold that patent to Prince Corporation."

Transition to Overhauling and Television Success [12:04 – 43:00]

Chip shares his journey from Instagram fame to co-hosting the popular TV show Overhauling. He recounts working with renowned personalities like Tom Gale and Boyd Coddington, where he built custom cars under tight deadlines, averaging a new build every 11 days during season three.

Chip Foose [40:29]:
"We averaged finishing a car every 11 days."

He highlights the creative freedom and teamwork that made Overhauling a success, emphasizing the emotional reward of delivering a client’s dream car.

Chip Foose [32:20]:
"What those mean to me is I did my job for my customers."

Current Projects and Design Philosophy [43:00 – 73:00]

Chip discusses his current projects, including a 62 Corvette, a 56 Chevy post car, and a 57 Lincoln Continental. His passion project involves restoring a Duesenberg chassis, aiming to combine vintage aesthetics with modern engineering.

Chip Foose [43:57]:
"I'm trying to put myself back in the early 30s, maybe mid-30s... make it a much more voluptuous looking vehicle."

He elaborates on his design philosophy, prioritizing timelessness over trends and ensuring each build reflects both aesthetic beauty and functional performance.

Chip Foose [34:20]:
"I don't want to build something trendy because four or five years from now, somebody's going to look at that car and they know it was built four or five years ago."

Chip also touches on his collaboration with Hemmings, where he and his son curate and showcase desirable cars, blending his design expertise with their extensive collection.

Chip Foose [55:23]:
"We're going to be doing a section in Hemmings called Chip's Picks... finding cars and talking about it."

Fan Questions and Insights [73:00 – 93:07]

The hosts present listener questions, prompting Chip to share further insights:

1. Preference for Common vs. Oddball Cars:

   • Chip Foose [57:41]:
     "I like both. I mean, anything with four wheels. But if it's a car that's commonly done, then I want to look at it and try to do something different to make it stand out."

2. Automaker Design Comparison:

   • Chip Foose [62:06]:
     "If we go into the 30s and the 40s, the Fords are pretty much the top... but also the Chevys were really getting strong."
   • Matt Farah [63:13]:
     "The Continental is really, really, really the best car in the world that we're doing."

3. Modern vs. Classic Design Challenges:

   • Chip Foose [67:58]:
     "It's no longer the designer that's making the final decisions... I absolutely love the cars that were designed by the design team."

4. Engine Swaps and Custom Builds:

   • Chip Foose [47:11]:
     "I've got two J model engines sitting in my shop right now."
   • Chip Foose [83:14]:
     "I don't really do restoration work because what I want to do is build what I call the bank of intellectual property."

5. Influence of Modern Automakers:

   • Chip Foose [72:12]:
     "When I think of today's cars, the Corvette is a pretty phenomenal car for the money."

6. Dream Projects and Future Plans:

   • Chip Foose [84:29]:
     "I'm building it... I'm putting a Lincoln Zephyr flathead in it, but dressed it to look like a Rolls Royce Merlin motor."

Conclusion

Chip Foose concludes the discussion by sharing his aspirations to continue innovating within the automotive design realm, emphasizing the importance of emotional connections and customer satisfaction in his work.

Matt Farah [93:07]:
"Thank you for stopping by, Chip. I appreciate it."

Chip Foose [93:07]:
"Thank you so much."

---

Notable Quotes:

• Chip Foose [04:11]:
  "If you got into a slippery situation, the other wheel would take over and you could find traction."

• Chip Foose [07:08]:
  "We developed the idea of integrating that button into the car... we got the patent, and we sold that patent to Prince Corporation."

• Chip Foose [32:20]:
  "What those mean to me is I did my job for my customers."

• Chip Foose [34:20]:
  "I don't want to build something trendy because four or five years from now, somebody's going to look at that car and they know it was built four or five years ago."

• Chip Foose [57:41]:
  "I like both. I mean, anything with four wheels. But if it's a car that's commonly done, then I want to look at it and try to do something different to make it stand out."

• Chip Foose [67:58]:
  "It's no longer the designer that's making the final decisions... I absolutely love the cars that were designed by the design team."

This episode provides an in-depth look into Chip Foose's remarkable career, his design philosophies, and his ongoing contributions to the automotive world. Whether you're a car enthusiast or new to the realm of custom automotive design, Chip's insights offer valuable perspectives on creating timeless, high-quality vehicles.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. You know it and I know it. Your favorite car podcast. This podcast is brought to you by off the Record as always, but asterisk very important. We are getting rid of the app code. It's been problematic. People have been having problems using the code on the off the record app. Instead, you want to support your favorite podcast when you use off the record the best legal aid service. Legal aid service is probably not the right term service to help connect you with a lawyer. To fight your tickets and win 97% of the time that's off the record, go to offtherecord.com TST they'll get you all legal services 10% off when you book through us. Right. Offtherecord.com TST they're the best. But ditch the code on the app. You can use the app once you make an account. The app is still good. But something about the software and the code through the app, it just. It was causing problems. So it's gone. Banished. Right? Like your tickets, like the points off your record. Offtherecord.com TST Love em. All right, folks, on this episode we are back in studio with a legend. Chip Foose is here. This guy, if you're of our age, a guy in your 40s, you know who Chip Foose is. This guy has built hundreds and hundreds of cars. He has multiple riddler awards, multiple grand national roadster show winner. Grand national roads. The show called him the builder of the decade. The guy has 50 years almost fabricating cars because he was doing it when he was a kid at his dad's shop too. He was a co host and the lead designer and fabricator on overhauling. His stories are amazing. He is in fact truly legendary. And it's a real privilege to have Chip Foose in studio for the Smoking Tire podcast. Let's go. Just have Chip Foose do everything. Why even go anywhere else? We're in. This is it. Chip Foose in studio.

[Chip Foose]

Well, thanks for having me.

[Matt Farah]

What a treat. I usually see you at stuff like sema, but now it's like a little jarring, like you're here.

[Chip Foose]

What was the first year you ever went to SEMA?

[Matt Farah]

2007. You all long dominated it before.

[Chip Foose]

Wait, what year were you born?

[Matt Farah]

1981.

[Chip Foose]

81. I graduated high school.

[Matt Farah]

82. And you look way, you look younger than me. If you put us next to each other. Yeah, no, you've been around. You've had.

[Chip Foose]

85 was the first year I went to SEMA. 85 and I've been every year since.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Zach Klapman]

How many people were there in? 85.

[Chip Foose]

It was one room, one hall.

[Matt Farah]

Wait, let me move this a little closer to you. Just one hall.

[Chip Foose]

Just one hall.

[Matt Farah]

And, like, was it. Was it. So you know how. You know how it's sema. Like, there's. There's like the new trendy stuff every year.

[Chip Foose]

You know where Ford's booth used to be now I believe is Toyota.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Which is like the deck. The balcony, Right? Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Okay. Well, we had that balcony, and then the room that's just below it, that was. And then it started to build in the room behind after that.

[Matt Farah]

And who were you there on behalf of? Were you with Coddington at that time?

[Chip Foose]

No, at that time, I worked at a company called OSHA Corporation.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And we designed and developed a product called Girodisc.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, G I R O D I.

[Chip Foose]

S in every Jeep. Yeah, we developed that in Santa Barbara.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay, cool.

[Chip Foose]

At the company that I was at. And I knew Tony Thacker.

[Matt Farah]

That name is familiar, but I can't place it.

[Chip Foose]

He came over from England and he worked with Gary Medders from Good Guys Association. So I met him through Good Guys, but he was working with SEMA at the time, and he did something called the Innovation Center. And he called me and said, hey, do you want to put your jurodisc in the Innovation Center? So that's where I showed it on behalf of Asha.

[Matt Farah]

That was like a 10 by 10 within SEMA?

[Chip Foose]

No, it was about a 3 by 3 in the innovation Center. I put some illustrations and we built a cutaway model. So it showed you exactly what it did.

[Matt Farah]

And for those who have absolutely no idea and have never heard of it, what did it do?

[Chip Foose]

Okay, there's a star, a ring from a oil pump that was in the differential. And if both wheels are spinning at the same time, it does nothing. But if one wheel would break loose, then that star and ring would pump oil into a clutch pack, which would transfer power to the other wheel and lock it up, make it a. Like a positraction.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And then within two rotations of those wheels, if they start to spin at the same rate, then that oil would bleed off. So you. If you got into a slippery situation, the other wheel would take over and you could, you know, find traction. And now it's in every Jeep. We ended up partnering with Dana and they started building it. But right at that time is when I left OSHA Corporation and went to work for Boyd Coddington.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so what was your like when you were working with the to do the jiro disc thing. Like, what was your actual, like, role in that? Was it a big enough, small enough company that you were like, directly?

[Chip Foose]

We were a design group.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And while we were there, my job was to come up with four patentable ideas every quarter and patent them or prototype them. And one of the ideas that came up with, you know, your garage door.

[Matt Farah]

Remote, did you find that you had, like, one quarter worth of ideas, and then you were like, Q2. You're like, oh, shit, what do I do now?

[Chip Foose]

We had a wish list from General Motors of things that they wished they could do.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And working off that.

[Matt Farah]

God, I'd love to see a list like that.

[Chip Foose]

It was really cool.

[Matt Farah]

I'd love to see a list like that from 1985 compared to a list like that today. In 1985, it would probably be like, I don't know, like, add 100 horsepower to every vehicle. Now it's probably like, find out the shopping habits of everyone who buys our cars. It's probably like, data.

[Chip Foose]

Well, like, they wanted seats that would fit a body so you could change them. So we developed, you know, seats with airbags in them that would contour, which is used today.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

One of the ideas I had was, you know, your garage remote back in the 80s to open your. Your car garage door.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

In the car, it was. Just. Had a spring clip on it, and it sat on your visor.

[Matt Farah]

Of course, some still do.

[Chip Foose]

So. Yeah. So we developed the idea of integrating that button into the car.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, homelink.

[Chip Foose]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Well, the very first one that I did, I took your garage remote and put it inside of a box in the engine compartment. And, you know, in your Jacuzzis, you have that pneumatic button.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

So I had two of those. Two of those little nomadic bellows. One in the box, and when you pushed it on your dash, it actually pushed your button in the box in the engine compartment. And then, of course, we worked with it. We got the patent, and we sold that patent to Prince Corporation.

[Matt Farah]

That's crazy. The Home Link, the first Home link was a pneumatic jacuzzi button. That's awesome.

[Chip Foose]

So we sold that patent to Prince Corporation in Holland, Mich, Michigan.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And I'd like to say we. I was just an employee.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But I loved what I was doing there. It was cool.

[Matt Farah]

If you have a wish list. Oh, man, that makes the. That makes it so much better, doesn't it?

[Zach Klapman]

But you were trained as a designer, right? Like, arts and stuff, so.

[Chip Foose]

Yep.

[Zach Klapman]

This sounds like you were also doing engineering in a way, or you just like the idea guy.

[Chip Foose]

I grew up with my dad as a fabricator and building hot rods.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And then I ended up. I don't know if you've ever seen the. The big helmet car vehicles that the NFL uses to pull. Well, I designed that for Baker Sportronics and then they made the little toys called the N Runner. NFL has them.

[Matt Farah]

Isn't that that same. The helmet car? Isn't that that same joint that from like Major League? That was the baseball. That's the same, right? Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Harry Bradley did the baseball ones back in the 70s and I did the NFL football one. That was in the 80s.

[Matt Farah]

You should bring that back.

[Chip Foose]

It was pretty fun. But when Alon Clinae, you remember the Clin car? Yeah, in the seventies.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Alon.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Owned. He had a company, was called Sternberger Clin.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And Mark Sternberger, who's an illustrator, you may have seen his work. He was always in road and track. Well, when I went to work for them, I went into the shop and I was. I was working as a model builder and prototype stuff. Mark Neeper was Mark Sternberger's apprentice. When Mark Neeper left, he knew I could draw. He came in and said, hey, you might want to go talk to Mark.

[Matt Farah]

Were you good at drawing when you were very young or did you. Were you taught it in school?

[Chip Foose]

I started drawing when I was three years old. My father could draw. And then at the age of seven, I met Alex Trembulas, who designed the Tucker. He worked for Auburn Court Duesenberg and was head of the Thunderbird studios through the 60s.

[Matt Farah]

Do you seem like Alex must have been old, right? Yeah, Okay. I was gonna say, cuz you seem. The timelines don't seem to cross there. Just as you probably look young, but.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, he was friends with my dad.

[Zach Klapman]

I think Chip is a highlander. I think Chip doesn't age.

[Matt Farah]

You look the same.

[Zach Klapman]

I met you like 20 years ago.

[Matt Farah]

You're ageless.

[Chip Foose]

Alex didn't live far from my dad's shop and he would come up, just see the projects, but he also would build these really cool futuristic vehicles out of wood. And he would bring them up and have my dad paint them. Later I started painting them. We were good friends. He's the one that wrote my letter of recommendation to Art Center. He taught me some stuff, how to draw. Like I said, I met him when I was seven.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Well, I had gone halfway through Art center and I left. I couldn't afford to stay. That's when I went to work for Alain Clanae and Mark Sternberger, ended up being Mark's apprentice for six or for three years. I was there for a total of six years. And Alon is the one that paid for me to go back to school and graduate.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it was pretty cool when you were at Art center because, like, you know, if you hang out in Southern California long enough, like, all roads lead through Art Center. Pretty much. You know, we've talked to Freeman and we've talked to a variety of other people who were there. Was anyone else. Were you contemporaries with other people at Art center who went on to do great things?

[Chip Foose]

Well, it's interesting. You know, I started in 84, I left in 86, I went back in 89, graduated in 90.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

So I met a lot of people in the industry, and I would say that Art center was the door opener for me to, you know, a lot of different things. And my senior project was the Plymouth Prowler.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Ended up going to production.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, you did the hemisphere, which was my first exposure to you.

[Chip Foose]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Enormous.

[Chip Foose]

My model from Art center is what became the.

[Matt Farah]

That's what I'm saying. That's where I was going with that. This is crazy, right?

[Chip Foose]

To say that I designed the Prowler would be a slap in the face to the engineers and designers that did it at Chrysler.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But my model was the inspiration for.

[Matt Farah]

It, which is amazing.

[Chip Foose]

Well, thank you.

[Matt Farah]

And. But wait, so the hemisphere was built in 067, something like that.

[Chip Foose]

My model was done at art center in 90.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And it took me 17 years. That's what I was gonna say in 2007.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That was the first year I met you.

[Chip Foose]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

When that car was being unveiled at sema, which I guess we had the.

[Chip Foose]

Green one and the black one. The black one in the Chrysler booth.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You let me like sit in the black one and poke around. This was a. This. I mean, if you're just looking at a photo of it, it's stunningly beautiful. Thank you. What you can't see from the outside, really, is that it is a mid, A rear mid engine vehicle, which makes it infinitely cooler than the Prowler, even though it kind of vaguely resembles a Prowler. There's the angle you want. That's the rear three quarter above with the velocity stacks. What motor was in this? It was a Hemi.

[Chip Foose]

Well, you know, it's interesting, folks gotta.

[Matt Farah]

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[Chip Foose]

You know, I met a lot of people when I was at Art center, including Tom Gale. That's who I did my final presentation to. And Tom became a friend. And I actually did several projects with him. But I told him that I was starting to build it and he says what are you doing motor wise? And I said I really don't know yet. He said can we do a Hemi in it? He says, I'm bringing back the old hemi. So in 97 I got a call. He says, I'm gonna have some people call you. So Jim Bratton from Chrysler Mopar Performance called me and he said, what do you want in your car? I said, well, I'm not really sure. What are you guys making? He says, we're gonna put you in touch with Dick Landy and you guys work it out, whatever you want. He says, I don't care if you want a top fuel motor, that's what he'll build you. So Dick Landy called me, he says, what are you doing? And I explained to him what I was doing and I said, I'd like to be able to drive this car across country if I need to. He says, okay. He says, we're gonna do an iron block, aluminum heads, and we'll reduce the size of the pulley. So, you know, because we're pushing that water all the way through the frame. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Radiator, rear engine. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

So he told me exactly what he wanted to do, and he built my motor, which I didn't ended up using. I have it sitting at the shop. It's dynoed from Dick Landy426hemi with aluminum heads.

[Matt Farah]

What never went in the cars.

[Chip Foose]

I've never used them all.

[Matt Farah]

What went in the cars?

[Chip Foose]

Well, it turned out when I started to, you know, I worked at Boyd's, and that's where I was originally building it. Then Boyd's went bankrupt, and it got put on the back burner. So then when I started again, I saw Tom Gale, and he says. And I said, yeah, I'm getting on it. And he says, can we switch out that motor? Because now they were bringing back their new Hemi.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And I said, you don't want me to run the 426? He said, let's do the next generation. The new Hemi that, you know is now in the.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's the Hemi that people are talking about now. So it was a six one, right? Six one.

[Chip Foose]

Originally it was a five. Seven. So that green car has the very first six two that they made, which was a 392 Hemi.

[Matt Farah]

Does it work?

[Chip Foose]

Oh, it works great.

[Matt Farah]

It does, yeah. What does it use for a gearbox?

[Chip Foose]

It's got a. Same gearbox that was in a Pantera.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. So the ZF5 speed. Oh, okay, Cool. What's it like to drive?

[Chip Foose]

Fun. Is it, you know, and then, like.

[Matt Farah]

Does it drive like a. Like. I mean, it's not normal, but does it drive like a normal car? Do you have to, like, use a lot of brain power to actually drive it?

[Chip Foose]

No, you don't need a brain.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You still have both. Yeah, you do.

[Chip Foose]

Well, the. The black one's not mine. I own the green one.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Who's got the black one?

[Chip Foose]

The black one belonged to Don Both, who has recently passed away. So the family's going to be selling, but there was five of them done, I thought.

[Matt Farah]

Wasn't there a planned run of these things? The Foose coupes, they became.

[Chip Foose]

Right, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But what happened?

[Chip Foose]

Well, originally they were all hemispheres, and I own the trademark hemisphere for clothing and toys and whatnot. I also owned it for cars and you know, you have to renew your trademarks. Well, I accidentally let it lapse.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And the day that it lapsed, Chrysler took it from me. No, it came back to me. And that's when we were building cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And Chrysler comes back and said, we have your name now, but we're going to let you use it for a, you know, for license free. But we want to own the name.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And I said, well, I don't need to use it. They said, well, you're going to be selling hemisphere. So I said, no, I'll start selling foose coupes and I'll put a Ford motor in it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And he said, no, no, no, we don't want you to do that. We want you to use. And I said, no. I said, you're trying to strong arm me and you've taken my name. Yeah. So I will now build foose coupes. Thank you.

[Matt Farah]

That's crazy.

[Chip Foose]

And that's what I did.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. So you did end up building. You both built five. But there was a planned run for more.

[Chip Foose]

Right. There's three of them with hemi motors and two with Ford motors.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, wow. Which drove better.

[Zach Klapman]

But I'm not saying so I had a design book, like, because I was really into hot rods when I grew up. I went to hawthorne nights and st. So I kind of knew who you were. And my parents got me a book of car design I think like early 2000 or late 90s, early 2000s. And you're. This was in it. But I remember like in this book which had, you know, any countless number of 41 Willys and 32 for like the stuff that was basically in vogue from like 1940 to the 90s, you know, the styles like they changed a bit. More flames, more louvers, but it was all like kind of the same. And then this shows up in the book and I'm like, what the fuck is that?

[Chip Foose]

Who made this?

[Matt Farah]

What is.

[Zach Klapman]

And it was like it completely different than anything else that was in any of those pages, which was so rad.

[Chip Foose]

It's hot rod, it's muscle car and it's supercar.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I. I really would like to have a go in that. Can I drive it? Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

It's in Lincoln, Nebraska right now. It's on display at the speedway museum.

[Matt Farah]

Is it?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I. What if I go to Lincoln, Nebraska? I got a friend in Lincoln.

[Chip Foose]

We can do that. Probably gonna have to change the battery. It's been sitting there for.

[Matt Farah]

I'll bring a jump box.

[Chip Foose]

Almost a year yeah, it's a fun car to do.

[Matt Farah]

I would be a circle if. Maybe. Maybe for 20, 27. If 20 years later, after meeting you and sitting in this, I actually get to drive it. It's. So is it. I mean, it must be. For those who've never seen this car, I'm sorry for spending 20 minutes on this, but I care. Does it. Is it. When you drive it, is it like heavily rear rear biased or does it. Because it's got a. It's got a long nose and.

[Chip Foose]

No, it's. It's actually. It's got 124 inch wheelbase, but it feels very agile and very light in the front. The steering is, you know, it's.

[Matt Farah]

It's.

[Chip Foose]

It doesn't have power steering, but there's no weight on the front wheel. So.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it must be. It must be easy.

[Zach Klapman]

It looks like the engine is all the way in front of the rear.

[Matt Farah]

It is in front. Yeah. It's mid. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

Should be pretty good.

[Matt Farah]

I bet that glass roof and engine cover was pricey.

[Chip Foose]

Well, that's what metal crafters does. They have their own glass.

[Matt Farah]

You do glass?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, that's.

[Matt Farah]

See, that's a.

[Chip Foose]

That's a good one.

[Matt Farah]

That's a good one to have. Yeah. So, okay, we. I could talk about this one car. But you've built. I mean, you've built hundreds, if not thousands of cars. Do you have a number? Do you know how many cars you build?

[Chip Foose]

No, you don't.

[Matt Farah]

You don't even know.

[Chip Foose]

Overhauling alone was about 170.

[Matt Farah]

That's a lot. But like. So what do you think? Do you think you've done 500 in your life? Thinking more than five?

[Chip Foose]

Well, as a kid working in my dad's shop, we would send 80 to 120 cars a month out of the. Out of the body. You know, we had a repair shop, crash shop, but we also built hot rods back there. So, I mean, I built, you know, it started at three years old. I was going to Gene Winfield shop, where my dad was the man, you know, he was shop manager.

[Matt Farah]

You go, that goes. That's like. That's some like deep car building.

[Chip Foose]

It was pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

We're going back to like the 40s now, right?

[Chip Foose]

No, I'm not that old.

[Matt Farah]

No, no. But your dad, Gene Winfield, I mean, Gene Winfield was in 40s, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

So this is back in the 60s, 1966. I started going to jean shop with my dad on the weekends and watched what they were building.

[Matt Farah]

That must have been.

[Chip Foose]

And then the cool thing Was, you know, it was. AMT was the name of the shop, and AMT is the plastic model kits that you buy. So they were building the full size cars that became the model kits.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, wow.

[Chip Foose]

So I'd watch my dad and the crew and they'd build these cars, and then my dad would bring a model home that I got to build. That's pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

That's cool.

[Chip Foose]

And Hot Wheels was building die cast versions of the same cars that were being built.

[Matt Farah]

So what gave you. I mean, I guess just watching your dad the whole time, but what gave you the artistic sort of eye of. Because you have a style that you developed, but you can see it in some of your earlier work. Where did you see that sort of old style of hot rod and custom car building and go, here's where I want to change this.

[Chip Foose]

You know, My dad could draw, and I started drawing next to him when I was 3, and it was at about the age of 14 that my artwork was about equivalent to his. He never drew after that. He would just tell me, this is what I want to do. Draw it. So I was drawing everything that we were building together, and then I started doing drawings for other people. Then I went halfway through Art center, and then when I left Art Center, I went back and I was working with my dad, and I started my own studio. And that's when I did the NFL helmet car. Working on my own stuff. And then Alain Klein saw the NFL helmet model that I built, asked me to start doing some work for him. So I was working with my dad, working in my own studio, and working at Osha Corporation. And then Asha sent me. It was Sternberg Clin became OSHA Corporation. And then they put me back through Art Center. I did the hemisphere model, which was the prowler for Chrysler. Boyd Coddington saw that model, asked me to start working for him. I worked for him for two and a half years and then left OSHA Corporation and went full time with. With Boyd.

[Matt Farah]

When Chrysler, when you, you know, it takes your senior project and it becomes the PT Cruiser, are you compensated? Prowler. Excuse me, not Cruiser. Sorry.

[Chip Foose]

I was given.

[Matt Farah]

Are you compensated?

[Chip Foose]

I was given $200 by Art center for supplies while we did that project. All right, that's it.

[Zach Klapman]

A car made by OEM.

[Matt Farah]

$200 pencil bonus. Cool.

[Chip Foose]

But those projects and my show at ArtCenter, like I say, opened the doors and started a lot of relationships, because then I've been involved with several show cars through the manufacturers that are just amazing projects.

[Zach Klapman]

How common is it for A student senior project to be built into. I mean, the concept, let alone metal and sold at a dealership is like a percentage of you could buy parts.

[Chip Foose]

I've known of other students that their vehicles became show cars.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Chip Foose]

But I don't know of any other students that their. Their inspiration became a production car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's got to be. Wow. Very rare, if not unique.

[Chip Foose]

I would think so.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's pretty. That's a good one. That's a good one on the cv.

[Chip Foose]

I'm proud of that one.

[Matt Farah]

Good one on the cv. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Were you really excited when the Prowler project went forward? Were you? Did the kid.

[Chip Foose]

I had no idea it would go forward. I'll tell you, that project was presented to us as students to design a. They called it a. Trying to remember the term they used. They wanted us to design. Man, I can't think of what they call retro future. No, it wasn't anything like that. It was a niche market vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

Create a niche market vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And the example they gave us was a guy that likes to work out on an exercise bike might work out on his bike, charge a battery that he could put in his car and get to and from work that day. And I was thinking at that time, well, that's something I don't believe I'll ever do. But that's what we had to do.

[Matt Farah]

You're like, instead, I could design the most useless car in the history of the automotive world. It doesn't carry anything. It doesn't keep you warm. It doesn't even have full body work.

[Chip Foose]

I already knew it's going to be a lightweight, simple vehicle. And that's what we all started to design. Now, at that time, if you were drawing muscle cars or hot rods at ArtCenter, it was very frowned upon.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

They got pretty upset that you're focusing on not the future of automobile design, but you're focusing on the past.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Chip Foose]

So I did two separate presentations, and I didn't tell my teachers or any of the other students about it. I did a complete second presentation in my apartment and then put it up the day that Tom Gale came in for our presentation. So I had two. Two lines of vehicles.

[Matt Farah]

Whoa.

[Chip Foose]

So Tom gets to, you know, he's going through the room and interviewing all the students, and he gets to my wall and he says, okay, I know what you're doing over here. That's our project, but what are you doing over here?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And I said, well, this is what you asked us to do, these niche market vehicles. So I'VE got five of them here. And the way I look at this project, just like these drawings and every drawing in this room, we're trying to create a niche market, and we're trying to create a customer. I said, what I'm doing over here is I'm catering to customers that exist. I said, there are three thousands of people out there with their older muscle cars or hot rods. They're trying to put modern, you know, mechanicals and drivetrain under them so they can enjoy them on a daily basis. I said, we have the advantage right now because it's not today's designers fault that designers chose to go away from a great form and create something completely new. You can look at a Mustang and, you know, it. The body changes, you know, every three or four years. It becomes something else.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And, you know, Kudas or Challengers, you know, they had a really cool body and then they just went away from something or the whole vehicle went away. I said, we have the advantage right now to go back and draw from something that was great in the past and evolve it into something new and.

[Matt Farah]

Skip, you know, skip 40 years, right? Basically, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But we can tug on the heartstrings of memories of a guy that remembers his grandfather having that or his dad having that and build something new and modern for them today. And Tom looked at me, says, well, what do you want to build? And I said, well, I would love to build one of these. And I pointed to the hot rods and the muscle cars I had both in there. And I said, but I know you're gonna want me to do one of these. He says, no, I want you to do the hot rod. So it was Tom Gale that, you know, stood up for me and said, yes, build it. And like I say, he became a good friend to me. That's for many years.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

When Troy Trapanier and I built the Sniper, which was that 1953.

[Matt Farah]

I remember that. Yeah. Get a picture of the Trepanier Sniper. Yeah, it was a good car.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. So that project, Troy says it'd be cool if we could put the Viper motor in it. So I went to Tom Gale with my drawings and I said, is there any way we can get a V12 for this? And he says, 10 or. Yeah, the V10 for it. And he says, yeah. He says, let me get back to you. So he calls me two days later and he says, here's the address. Here's the phone number. I have a complete. Now, they hadn't released the coupe yet. This is in 19 GTS.

[Matt Farah]

This would have been 94 maybe. Right.

[Chip Foose]

Well, the night this was in 97.

[Matt Farah]

The GTS came out in 96.

[Chip Foose]

Okay. Yeah. This was probably in 95 or 96. Then he says I have an engineering coupe. He says you can have the whole car.

[Matt Farah]

Dollar cars. Yes.

[Chip Foose]

Yes. So we went and picked that up and I used the entire drivetrain underneath was pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

That's still. Vipers remain a good drivetrain donor for things. Yeah, yeah, I do. I've seen.

[Chip Foose]

That was a fun car.

[Matt Farah]

I've seen quite a few hot rods with full viper powertrains. Yeah, you can't do. You can't do the side pipes though. They sound like UPS trucks. Side pipes. You gotta do. They sound so much better with the center exit rear exhaust like they did for like two years in the 90s.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The. You have won the Riddler Award four times.

[Chip Foose]

I've been involved with six cars that have won. I've built four at my shop.

[Matt Farah]

And you're builder of the decade according to the grand national roadster show. Do are you. Are these types of accolades, do you care about that kind of stuff or is it only about the next project and the next customer?

[Chip Foose]

What those mean to me is I did my job for my customers.

[Matt Farah]

Are all those cars customer cars?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. Yep. I've never, you know, campaigned one of my own cars.

[Matt Farah]

You haven't? Would you.

[Chip Foose]

I don't know, is it building them?

[Matt Farah]

But when you're building for a customer, do you enjoy working under the sort of creative constraints of what a customer wants or would you rather do you try to steer the customer to what you think will work best?

[Chip Foose]

Well, my goal is to build their dream.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Chip Foose]

You know, it's not my car, it's their car. But I still want to build something that I'm very proud of. And I have been extremely lucky and blessed that my customers have allowed me to build the cars that I've built.

[Matt Farah]

They give you. Do they give you a lot of freedom based on your reputation for delivering quality?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, most of them do just year.

[Matt Farah]

Make, model, color and then have fun kind of thing.

[Chip Foose]

You know, I've learned through the years to.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. God damn, is that good looking.

[Chip Foose]

Thank you.

[Matt Farah]

Sorry. Zach keeps pulling up your cars. It's very distracting.

[Chip Foose]

I have learned to not build a first build for somebody where they've never had a car built before.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. What don't they know that they should know about having a car build?

[Chip Foose]

What don't they know is that. Yeah, like number one, this is expensive. Okay. You know, I won't Give a quote to build a car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I asked them give me the freedom to build the best car I can. It's a time materials, and we're just gonna build something really, really cool. And like I say, I've been blessed to have had some customers allow me to do that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But anymore, it's. It's starting to get where I don't want to spend more than this. Okay, well, then we're not going to build the ultimate car. We're just going to build something really cool. And that's what's happened.

[Matt Farah]

But I'm going to build you three quarters.

[Chip Foose]

What I have discovered, but what I've discovered working with people, that it's their first car, they talk to their friends and they know better than we do on what they need to do. And so I get phone calls. You know, we're already going down one path. And then we get a phone call. I talked to my friend and he says, I need to do this, so I want to do this.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And sometimes you can't do that.

[Matt Farah]

Or worse, they read the forums.

[Chip Foose]

And the other thing it does for me, it takes all the wind out of my sails to keep building something that I know is going to be really cool. And what I don't like to do is anything trendy. And what these people find when they're talking to their friends, they're trying to do what's most trendy right now.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I don't want to build something trendy because four or five years from now, somebody's going to look at that car and they know it was built four or five years ago. If you don't do trendy and you just do good design.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

It's a timeless car.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. It's got to be unavoidable on some level. Wheels, things like that, that change with taste. Right.

[Chip Foose]

It's like whenever I'm building a car, I want to build a one off wheel for that car, which may go into production with the wheel company later. But I design a wheel for that car because I want it to be new on that car. And I'm looking at elements and details of the car. And that's where I pull something that inspires the wheel for that car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Do you have a favorite? You know, you've done your traditional muscle car builds. You've done 50s stuff. You've done that sort of open front fender, hot rod, narrow nose look. I'm sure there's a better descriptor than I've just used for that stuff.

[Chip Foose]

Teardrop, teardrop thank you.

[Matt Farah]

And then things that are just not even based on regular cars at all. Do you have a favorite style?

[Chip Foose]

My favorite is to design from scratch.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The hemisphere.

[Chip Foose]

Hemisphere is from scratch. The impression was from scratch. I did a lot of cars.

[Matt Farah]

Which one is impression? I'm not sure I remember that one.

[Chip Foose]

Impression was based on a 36 Ford Roadster, but it was completely handmade.

[Matt Farah]

Zach will find it very rapidly. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And that is.

[Matt Farah]

That is quite good.

[Chip Foose]

And I've had the freedom with car companies when we're building show cars.

[Matt Farah]

So do you like working with the. The. With the OEM as a client?

[Chip Foose]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

You do?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. Yeah. My name doesn't go on it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But the people that need to know know where it came from.

[Matt Farah]

It does it. And. And it. You know, is it a. It's a satisfying thing to be able to.

[Chip Foose]

To have that freedom to take a big of clay and start carving and shaping? Yeah. And make something come alive. It's. It's a really cool feeling.

[Matt Farah]

Do you work in clay?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You. Do you like personally with your hands? Oh, amazing.

[Chip Foose]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Is that. Is that a. Is that a Zen. A work day, as I feel like.

[Chip Foose]

Well, you can. You can change shapes and move things around really fast. And sketch modeling is. Is fun to do in clay. That's where you're just generating ideas. You know, the ideas come from a piece of paper where you've sketched it, but as you're building it, you know, those final decisions of how tight is that radius and is it this taller? Is it this tall? Or, you know, do we move the wheels? You can quickly cut something out and move a wheel and change it and look at it and, you know, I'll work in clay. I like to work in quarter scale.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. So it's like.

[Chip Foose]

Like 30 inches long.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

Maybe.

[Matt Farah]

And how long will it take you to do a model like that to where it looks like a car, even if it's not. Even if you want to change stuff. But to go from square, I'll just.

[Chip Foose]

Work in the clay and maybe pull a mold off it and make a glass body or an epoxy body and then cut that up and make. And then use that to make a section buck.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, right. I see.

[Chip Foose]

You can do a clay model in two weeks.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. And then just mold off it for a long time.

[Chip Foose]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

In full size. I've done the same thing.

[Matt Farah]

So what does your, like, work day look like?

[Chip Foose]

It's different every day.

[Matt Farah]

It's gotta be all over.

[Chip Foose]

Today I drove to L. A.

[Matt Farah]

You're down in O.C. now, right?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Okay.

[Chip Foose]

Where cars get built. Shops in Huntington beach, and I live in Orange.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So that's where cars get built in this state. So it's like, are you. Are you. Are you bending metal anymore, or are you directing a team of guys? What are we doing?

[Chip Foose]

Every day I've got a team. I'm directing them, and I'm working with them. I'm on the drawing table. I'm welding stuff. I'm cutting them, you know, whatever needs to be done. Lately, I've been working in foam and shaping an interior, and then I pull the foam out and fiberglass it and Bondo it and get it straight and make all the gaps so we can wrap it in leather.

[Matt Farah]

And when you're doing interiors, I mean, it's such an important part of the car, but it's a totally different skill set from doing an exterior. Right. Or is it not? Am I reading that wrong?

[Chip Foose]

You're working inside, but it's. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not finalizing everything in metal. Maybe sometimes we are. But the one that I'm working on right now, I'll just. I'll rough things out of wood. I'll take some Bondo, put it on the wood and put foam there, and then shape the foam and then put fiberglass on the outside. If I need to haul the foam out, we're taking it out, but it's whatever needs to be done to build the shapes that need to be wrapped. That's what I'm doing.

[Matt Farah]

I can picture. What if you showed me a pro touring muscle car at a car show? I could probably go, that's an overhauling car. I know your style as applied to those overhauling cars. I saw probably every episode of that show with all the re. It was on for six years. Five. Six years. All the reruns.

[Chip Foose]

18 years.

[Matt Farah]

Is it still 18 years?

[Chip Foose]

We filmed for 18 years.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. Sorry for.

[Chip Foose]

That's all right.

[Matt Farah]

But I've seen a lot, and I. And I. I really know what your style looks like on those overhauling cars.

[Chip Foose]

And my favorite part of overhauling was, you know, the first five seasons where we did the cars in eight days.

[Matt Farah]

Or less, where you actually did it for. For. In the real. The real timeline.

[Chip Foose]

We had season three. We built 29 cars in nine months.

[Matt Farah]

That's crazy.

[Chip Foose]

We averaged finishing a car every 11 days. But we were also moving the studio because we'd go and build. Build a car at one shop, finish a car, move the studio. Then we started Doing two in one shop or three in one shop. But what we couldn't have because we were stealing the cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Working with their, you know, either a wife or a husband or a brother or sister. We would steal the car, then take it to our shop, build the car. What we couldn't have is somebody knowing where overhauling was.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Take a car and they go, I bet overhauling's got it. That's why later, you know, we started telling the people up front, yeah, you know, you're on overhauling. We're gonna build your car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably more fun.

[Chip Foose]

That was my.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, you have to hide once. They're like, oh, no, this is. This isn't. It's not stolen. It's overhauled. Yeah, yeah, it was.

[Chip Foose]

It was a blast, though. And that, you know, I got to thank Bud Bretzman, the producer. And we did. If you remember rides before that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

The pilot episode. I built that 2002 Thunderbird. The Speedbird. And I built that car in just under seven weeks. I lost £27 building that car. I was working around the clock. Crazy. And when we got done, Bud came to me. You know, he filmed the show, put it together, and sent the show to Discovery Channel. They loved it and wanted it to be a series. So Bud comes back to me and says, what are we doing next? I said, I'm not.

[Zach Klapman]

You're gonna sleep.

[Chip Foose]

I said, but I have an idea for a show now. Monster Garage had just come out.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Where they were building something in a week.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And I said, rather than building something that performs a task, let's take somebody who owns a car, but they don't have the money or the means to build what they want. Let's build their dream and give it back to them at the end of the week.

[Matt Farah]

It's a fantastic idea. It's all fun.

[Chip Foose]

Had the idea of, let's steal the car and prank the owner. He wrote up a treatment, gave it to Discovery. They said, yeah, here's an order for seven episodes right away.

[Matt Farah]

It was a good show.

[Chip Foose]

It was a lot of fun.

[Matt Farah]

It was a really good show. Chris Jacobs is a great guy. I see him a lot at all.

[Chip Foose]

The stuff Chris brought, the professionalism to the crew. You know, he is such a great presenter.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, he is.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. And so I didn't want to do it without him, and I thought, he's.

[Matt Farah]

A good lead for.

[Chip Foose]

He and I are the only two that did every single episode of Overhauling.

[Matt Farah]

Where I sort of was meandering to And I didn't get there because we talked about, we were talking about overhauling was what do most of those overhauling builds are. Were done in a time period where this was you, you, you personally def style of what a car built in that era looks like. And you say you're not trendy, but I think you're a trend setter, which is a different thing. Thank you. So what the stuff that you're working on now, to be honest, I haven't seen something you've built or sought it out intentionally in the last couple of years. What are you working on now that you're really passionate about?

[Chip Foose]

Right now We've got a 62 Corvette in the shop, 56 Chevy post car, 55 DeSoto, 33 Ford four door sedan, a 57 Lincoln Continental.

[Matt Farah]

Those are all right.

[Chip Foose]

I've got a stretch, 32 Ford Roadster that we're working on. But I just got a project in the shop that I have wanted to do for probably 35 years, which is. And this is my dream job that I get to build now. Because back in the late 20s, early 30s, if you bought a Duesenberg, you bought a chassis and then you took that to a coach builder, they would get a designer involved and they built, designed and built your body that went on the Duesenberg chassis.

[Matt Farah]

Mulliner Park Ward, Fingoni, Falachi, any of these crazy European places. Or.

[Chip Foose]

So Rob and Jeanne Hillardi's bought a Duesenberg that was being restored in, I believe it was the late 60s, early 70s. The chassis was done and they were waiting for the body to get out of the paint shop. Well, that paint shop burned or it was in a shed, a storage shed or something. But the original body was destroyed. So it was a Ralston body, but it was gone.

[Matt Farah]

There's photos, right?

[Chip Foose]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

But the owners chose a different body and they built a reproduction body and finished the car that way.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

So we bought that car, or I should say, you know, Rob and Jeanne bought that car. We have since pulled that body off. And I'm working on the drawings of what we're going to build now. But I'm trying to put myself back in the early 30s, maybe mid-30s. If I were a designer then and I had this chassis to work with. I want to keep the grill. And basically from the center of the front wheels forward, the fenders will still look like that Duesenberg fender. Because you, you could buy it with a grill, a hood, side fenders, running boards, and all the lights.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And then you basically designed from the firewall to the back your body and did the interior. So I'm gonna change the fenders and the body line. They had a skirt that covered, you know, most Duesenberg had a skirt that covered the frame. I want to bring the body down the bottom of that rocker, give it a little shape and make it a much more voluptuous looking vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

Body by foose.

[Chip Foose]

Yes. So.

[Matt Farah]

So is it an s or sj?

[Chip Foose]

This is a j model.

[Matt Farah]

It's a J.

[Chip Foose]

Yes. Okay. S was supercharged.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We like those.

[Chip Foose]

This is not a supercharged model, but whatever.

[Matt Farah]

It's a do's and buts.

[Chip Foose]

We could add it.

[Matt Farah]

You get to buy. You could add it. Could you get a duesenberg supercharger?

[Chip Foose]

I'll bet Randy ema probably has one.

[Matt Farah]

There must be one somewhere. Randy Ima $300,000.

[Chip Foose]

It's interesting. I built a 67 Chevy pickup and I sold it to a friend of mine in Texas. And part of the deal is he had a j model engine. So I have a j model engine that I was going to put in another project of my own. Just happens to be J573 is my motor.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And the car that Robin Jeannie bought is J575. So there was one car in between the two. So I have two j model engines sitting in my shop right now.

[Matt Farah]

What can you do with a duesenberg engine that's not. Put it in a duesenberg.

[Chip Foose]

I was going to build a stretched. I am building it now. It's a stretched 32 Ford Roadster. The doors are 6 inches longer and the hood is 22 inches longer. And I started building it and I put that motor in it and it is so crammed in there, I have decided not to use it. So anybody out there stretching a few more inches, baby? Anybody out there that's interested in j model Duesenberg motor? I have one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like it? I mean, what does it make, like 200 horsepower probably.

[Chip Foose]

I don't even know what the horsepower was. I just thought it'd be cool to do it.

[Matt Farah]

It was cool for sure.

[Chip Foose]

So I. I may put a model a Duesenberg motor in it, which is about 8 inches shorter.

[Matt Farah]

What do you think is your least your weirdest engine swap?

[Chip Foose]

Weirdest engine swap?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

That's an interesting question. I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

You ever put like a turbine in something or like anything like. No, but my airplane engine, helicopter motor, anything like that?

[Chip Foose]

My dad painted Andy granatelli's turbine powered Indy cars.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really?

[Chip Foose]

Back in the 60s, then they race.

[Matt Farah]

A half a race and get banned or something. Do they actually race any complet races?

[Chip Foose]

There was some, like, little 25 cent piece that ended, but he was winning the race.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. He's riding a rocket. Yeah, that happens. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Would you like.

[Chip Foose]

I have pictures of my dad painting those bodies.

[Matt Farah]

Would you like to put some crazy engine into something and no one's giving you the opportunity? I mean, a Duesenberg motor and a 32 Ford is pretty good. Anything weirder than that?

[Chip Foose]

No, I haven't done anything weirder. I've put a Lincoln Zephyr V12 in my P32. It was.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty cool.

[Chip Foose]

And that was. You know, when the rat rod started becoming really, really popular. I had this idea. Let's put a Lincoln Zephyr V12 in A32. But the inspiration for the whole car is what if a World War II fighter pilot who used to fly a P40 warbird.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

You know, now he's out of the war and maybe it was late 40s. He decided to build his own hot rod and themed it after his P40 warbird. So I put a Lincoln Zephyr flathead in it, but dressed it to look like a Rolls Royce Merlin motor. That was in the P40.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty cool.

[Chip Foose]

So that was the whole theme behind the car. Yeah. But I wanted to build something safe.

[Matt Farah]

I'm into that.

[Chip Foose]

That's what I. That's what I did.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Now you just need to do the actual Rolls Royce Merlin Motor.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, that would be cool, right?

[Matt Farah]

Oh, there it is. Look at that. That. Even in. Even in spooling. Oh, yes. See that?

[Chip Foose]

And now it's got the tiger's mouth.

[Matt Farah]

I think that. Is that what you would call a rat rod? I don't. I wouldn't call that a rat. It was my version.

[Chip Foose]

It was my version of a rat rod.

[Matt Farah]

This is as dirty as you'll allow yourself to have a car. Holy. Look how nice that engine is.

[Zach Klapman]

Beautiful engine.

[Chip Foose]

Wow. And those exhaust tips are just like what you would see on the.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

On the P4.

[Matt Farah]

But damn, is that still around?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, that's actually at the Speedway Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. Also, I've got six of my cars backed around.

[Matt Farah]

We should go just film six cars. Drive the whole collection. Yeah. See this. This is. It's funny, your version of a rat rod. Yeah. It's not dirty. No.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like an airplane.

[Matt Farah]

It's not patinaed. But is it bare aluminum or is it just painted silver?

[Chip Foose]

Both. No, it's raw metal and raw aluminum.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Okay. It looks cool as hell. I mean, that's a very, very pretty car. And I get The World War II war plane vibes now.

[Chip Foose]

Those seats.

[Matt Farah]

Actually, what is that gauge cluster, though? Can we talk about that?

[Chip Foose]

That's a Zephyr. Because I ran the Zephyr motor, so I wanted to put the Zephyr dash in. And that's also a Lincoln Zephyr steering wheel, which is the red acrylic.

[Matt Farah]

Damn, that is cool as hell.

[Chip Foose]

You can see that Lincoln Zephyr side shift transmission.

[Matt Farah]

That's cool.

[Chip Foose]

I made the arm wrap around it, and it's got the same. That transparent red.

[Matt Farah]

That might be a new contender for best shifter ever. How do you operate that device?

[Zach Klapman]

For people listening, it's like a bicycle hand going around.

[Matt Farah]

It's literally an H pattern.

[Chip Foose]

It just reaches reverses up first is down low, and then second and third.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. It's giving the dash a reach around. That's so crazy.

[Chip Foose]

It actually.

[Matt Farah]

The shifter, like, there's like a center vertical piece and the shifter comes around the back of it and comes around and says hello, like. Like a snake checking you out from around a tree.

[Chip Foose]

But you still got that first gear where you have your hand right on your girlfriend's knee in the seat.

[Matt Farah]

That's awesome. Oh, that's very cool. I'm into that. Yeah, super cool. So you have a. Oh, God, look at that nose. There's every angle. There's too many angles. So many louvers. Much, much war plane. And the wire wheels really work on that too.

[Chip Foose]

If you look at the back wheels, I took two of those. Those are 32 Ford wheels, 18 inch. But in the rear, I split two of them, cut the spokes out of one and just smooth the hoop out. Then I cut the hoop at the backside where it drops off. The other one I cut in front of the spokes and then I weld them together so I got a 2 inch wider rear.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, cool.

[Chip Foose]

And every.

[Matt Farah]

It's just the, the just make it. It's. I like, I don't even. It's so far beyond my comprehension. When you're doing a 62 vet and you're working in fiberglass, how does that change your approach?

[Chip Foose]

Well, you don't have to hammer it.

[Matt Farah]

True.

[Chip Foose]

You grind it. And if you want to build a shape, you can put foam behind it, shape something, and then glass. Glass it in glasses right back into the body and then tear the foam out so it's no Different.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I've seen quite. We've had two. Two C1 vets come through here recently. It seems like they're having maybe a little bit of a resurgence. Okay, cool cars.

[Chip Foose]

That one we.

[Matt Farah]

This one is a little of everything, it seems.

[Chip Foose]

It's got a lot of little subtle modifications. Rear fenders are 2 inches wider and an inch taller. We molded the original headlight ring and then molded that into the body. And originally on the 62, because it had the new rear end, it has those fitted bumpers that are wrap around.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But the front bumper was into the body, so I cut the front bumper all out and made it look like it was a wraparound bumper as well.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, cool. Yeah, these are like. The front half is 50s and the back half is 60s.

[Chip Foose]

Right. It's interesting. The 61 and 2 has that real prominent peak on top of the fender in the rear. Yeah, Well, I got rid of that peak and softened it because the front fenders are soft.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

To me, it always looked like one designer did the front and another designer did the back, which is just those two years between.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

You know, the.

[Matt Farah]

The rounded bustle bum.

[Chip Foose]

And the 63 is when all the design, you know, the whole car was one design.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Which. A beautiful car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But I didn't like those peaks on the rear fender, so I got rid of those.

[Matt Farah]

And like I say that front bumper that you. That I. I saw being fitted on there look particularly nice. This. This is great stuff. How long to. How long? I mean, you know, obviously every project is. Is different, and every car you're starting with is different. But is it usually like a year to do a car or 18 months?

[Chip Foose]

It depends on the owner and their budget. How much do you want to put towards it every month?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And, you know, do you want to keep putting money in or. Or, you know, sometimes I get projects like this Corvette. The owner went through a divorce, and money got tight, so it sat for a while. Now we're back on it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I know how it is. I have a car being restored right now, and their ability to fix it is right in line with my ability to pay for it. So I can relate to those customers. Do we have some things from the Patreon? Let's get those ready. But before we do, you want to plug Hemmings and your. Your Hemmings gig?

[Chip Foose]

Hemmings is pretty cool. I'm proud to be associated with him now, but I grew up with Hemmings in my dad's shop, and whenever we, you know, we like to Go camping. But my dad and always took Hemmings and we'd look for stuff in there. We'd find parts or just, you know, we'd get customers that came to us and it's the same thing now. I'll get a customer that comes to me and he says, you know, I want to build a 69Z28 Camaro. Okay, grab a Hemmings, find the car that's gonna be the donor car for the project.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Chip Foose]

Or whatever it is you're looking for. Hemis, you know, they, they've been around for 70 years and there are over 30,000 cars available at any one time. So you can find what you want. It's one stop.

[Matt Farah]

What are you doing with them?

[Chip Foose]

What am I doing with them?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, I'm telling people to go there for donor cars or your dream car.

[Chip Foose]

You don't have to cut it up and change it.

[Matt Farah]

No, we've sold cars on Hemmings here.

[Chip Foose]

It might be exactly what you want. You can find it there. But yeah, I'm just, I'm doing some social media work with them and we're going to be doing a section in Hemmings called Chips Picks and I'm working with my son and we're just, we're scrolling through their, their website and we're finding cars and talking about it. And then we might talk about maybe five or six cars. Then I'll pick one of them and I'll say, if I had that car, this is what I'll do. And I do a five minute sketch. Just loose. Might. Might have some color in it, might not, but I'm having fun with them.

[Matt Farah]

Cool. What is your son in the business with you?

[Chip Foose]

My son graduated from Chapman University in film.

[Matt Farah]

Nice.

[Chip Foose]

He loves film and he loves music. But because he's in film, he's working with us and he's doing our social media.

[Matt Farah]

Perfect. That is a good way to do it.

[Chip Foose]

Along with Bud Bretzman who is the producer of rides and overall.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, nice.

[Chip Foose]

So he comes down and brings a film crew and Brock works with them as well.

[Matt Farah]

Perfect. Let's get to some of our fans questions. Of course, if you want to ask questions for the show, if you want to watch the live stream, if you want to get the show before anybody else, if you want to get it without advertising. Patreon.com ThesMoKentyrePodcast is where you do it. And in line for best username. Angle of the dangle. Question for Chip, do you prefer doing cars that are more commonly done or ones that Are or oddball cars?

[Chip Foose]

I like both.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. I mean, anything with four wheels. But if it's car that's commonly done, then I want to look at it and I want to try to do something different that I haven't seen anybody do to make it stand out from everybody else.

[Matt Farah]

When you're at your level where you can make or know somebody who makes pretty much anything, does doing it. Like, if it's normal people who are buying an old car, the parts availability could be a consideration. But because you're effectively making so much, does it matter if there's a. If you can, quote, get parts for the car you're doing or not really.

[Chip Foose]

You can pretty much find whatever you want. But we can also build whatever we want, you know. And I would say that being a designer is also somewhat of a curse, because as a designer and somebody that I have an imagination, I can see how to change things. I can see a brand new car that's absolutely perfect. But something about it bothers me. That's where I say it's a curse. Because every time I look at it, I just look at that one thing that I want to fix, and that's what my customers allow me to do, is fix those things that bother me. And once I point it out to them, you know, they'll bring car. What do you think of this? It'd be fun to do. And what I'd love to do is this, this and this. I'd like to change that and make this, this, and you explain it to them and then they see it right away.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. We were just at Rick Hendricks collection in North Carolina.

[Chip Foose]

Did you go upstairs?

[Matt Farah]

The guitar. The guitar room, the glass floor, the guitar rooms. Insane. Yeah, it is. But he had a. I think it was a 70 or 71 Camaro.

[Chip Foose]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Second gen Camaro that he had. Basically had somebody. I don't know if I don't. Might have been you, but I don't know. Somebody. Okay. Basically restyle it as if it was a 62 Ferrari Lusso, like Ferrari louvers and Ferrari style bumpers. And it was amazing how much it looked like he was still a Camaro, but just with a few of those little details. It was amazing.

[Chip Foose]

I'm kind of doing almost the same thing, but with a 69 Mustang right now.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And what would the details be from?

[Chip Foose]

Kind of like a 275 GTB.

[Matt Farah]

Interesting.

[Chip Foose]

It's still Mustang.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But like the louvers behind the windows.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I want that Ferrari feel.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And then the rear, you know, the Tail light panel. Well, I've got a giant winners quick change in the back of this thing and it's going to have a really cool MagnaFlow exhaust system. And I want to see that. So the way I'm going to do that is I'll build a real shallow trunk that'll go forward and tie into the floor. But the tail light panel will be built out of a perforated material, like a supercar that you see today, like.

[Matt Farah]

McLaren's doing with that metal. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And you'll be able to look through that. The tail lights will be floating in that. There'll still be a bumper floating in front of it. It. And then I'll have some.

[Matt Farah]

You know, that's pretty kick ass.

[Chip Foose]

Something kind of an arrow styled pan underneath the bumper.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like a diffuser.

[Chip Foose]

Yes. But you'll look through that mesh material and you're going to be able to see the exhaust, the springs, you know, coilovers.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And that quick change rear end hanging out back.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that McLaren is doing that. Right.

[Chip Foose]

They didn't do that in the old Ferraris, but some of the new ones have that same type of feel.

[Matt Farah]

Tyler Barnett says, who are the young designers today that you're watching or feel excited about or do you pay attention?

[Chip Foose]

You know, it's interesting. I pay attention to their cars, not necessarily them, because this industry is all about inspiring people. And so I never know where I'm going to be inspired or what's going to inspire me. But I go to the shows and I look at the cars or I look at the magazines. I think one of the best magazines out there right now is Wheel Hub.

[Matt Farah]

I don't even know that magazine.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, it's a phenomena. And they also have truck hub.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And I think. But Wheel Hub is probably one of the best magazines. And you'll see some of the really cool stuff that's being built right now.

[Matt Farah]

Check that out. Okay. Cool.

[Chip Foose]

Comes out of Texas.

[Matt Farah]

All right. Also, Elon's ketamine dealer says, chip, which of the big three do you think had the best design department during the 60s and 70s?

[Chip Foose]

60S and 70s. You know, I like a lot of the different cars, but a lot of those designers went from one studio to another.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so do you have a designer?

[Chip Foose]

You know, Peter Brock was pretty awesome. Harry Bradley.

[Matt Farah]

You? Harley Earl, man.

[Chip Foose]

Harley Earl. Yeah, he was earlier. And. Oh, Larry Shinoda.

[Matt Farah]

Shinoda Corvettes.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. Yeah, he was phenomenal.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

But you know, if I. I don't really say that I'm one Or the other. But a lot of people ask me, are you a Ford Chrysler or a Chevy guy? Well, yeah, I'm all three.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

You know, in life, I've chosen one woman to spend the rest of my life with.

[Matt Farah]

You don't have to do that with cars.

[Chip Foose]

I'm gonna get my hands on every car I can.

[Matt Farah]

Having torn apart and put back together every car possible which car is built either by far the best or by.

[Chip Foose]

Far the worst of that period, usually. Well, if we go into the 30s and the 40s, the Fords are pretty much the top.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

You know, construction, 50s. I would still say I like the Fords. But also the Chevy's were really getting strong.

[Matt Farah]

Then the Continental really in the 60s.

[Chip Foose]

I would give it to GM.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Continental is really, really, really the best car in the world that we're doing.

[Chip Foose]

Right now is pretty impressive.

[Matt Farah]

We just saw one at a, at a concourse and I was like, oh.

[Chip Foose]

Man, I'm cutting this one up.

[Matt Farah]

Are you?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. Cut the top off. So it's gonna be a full time roadster.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really?

[Chip Foose]

But I'm leaving the stock windshield and the side glass. So eventually maybe.

[Matt Farah]

These were never sold. These were all coupes. Right. These were never sold as convertibles. Right.

[Chip Foose]

Ford built one convertible.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Is it cool looking?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Can you look up Continental, Series two, Series one or Series two?

[Chip Foose]

I think that's Series one, Continental convert.

[Matt Farah]

I think it's Series one, Continental, Series one convertible.

[Chip Foose]

Like they lost money on every one of those.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I love a car where they lose money. Those are my favorite kind of cars. That's how you know you're getting.

[Chip Foose]

You must like my cars. Yeah, I lose money building every one of them.

[Matt Farah]

That's how you know it's a good car. If you go GM, GM lost 55,000 doll a car doing.

[Chip Foose]

See the blue in the lower left?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's the one that. Look at that.

[Chip Foose]

So I'm building something that looks, well.

[Matt Farah]

That works exactly like you.

[Chip Foose]

But I'm putting a Thunderbird wraparound rear seat in it, you know. 64.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Cool.

[Chip Foose]

And of course we're doing one off wheels and, and dropping it down. And I, you know, the headlights, to me, when you see that line coming out in that front fender, they just look like they're dead flat. And the hood has that beautiful lead off.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

It goes into that radius. So I've dropped the headlights three quarters of an inch or dropped them down a half inch, pulled them back three quarters of an inch and put that little radius in the top of the Fender.

[Matt Farah]

Oh. Just to have a mirror that center line a little bit better.

[Chip Foose]

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So drop those down. And then you see the line in the front fender. The line that goes above the front wheel well.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And it comes forward of the wheel lip.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. Yes.

[Chip Foose]

It's kind of in an odd position. So I've pulled that line back so it's almost tighter on the wheel well. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And then I've pulled the bumpers back and narrowed them up.

[Matt Farah]

And I bet you wouldn't notice any of this unless you park two of them next to each other.

[Chip Foose]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Either. That's crazy.

[Chip Foose]

You know, when I build a car, I don't want everybody to know exactly what I did to it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I want people to walk up to my cars and say, I don't remember this car looking this nice.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And then they have to discover the differences.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Like you almost don't see it. But that rear deck lid has that spare tire cover on it. It's actually really tall.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And on a convertible, when you get rid of the top, it looks bigger than it is. So I've cut that down almost three inches.

[Matt Farah]

There's one that looks like it was coach built. Yeah. And it's really, really tall.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. You can see the maroon one, how tall it is there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You don't even really. I mean, you're not even really going to put a spare tire in it anyway. Who cares how tall it is? Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

It had the spare tire down below in the floor and it slides.

[Matt Farah]

I'd like to see you do a short wheelbase version of this. That seats too.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Remember what was his name, Murray, who did the. Who did the shortened Chrysler 300 and made it a roadster. That thing was kick ass.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I think you should shorten all four seat convertibles into roadster Go. Yeah. That looks awesome. Yeah. That is gonna be superb. I think you can get a great one of these for like 55,000 bucks.

[Chip Foose]

That car sold two years ago up in Monterey and we hadn't started on this car yet. And I tried to talk the owner into buying this one. I said, this is the one you should buy and let me do it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And he said, what do you think it's gonna sell for? I said probably around 120.

[Matt Farah]

And how low were you?

[Chip Foose]

It sold right around 120.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it did.

[Chip Foose]

But he says, no, no, no, that's.

[Matt Farah]

Not what this says. This says $296,500.

[Chip Foose]

That may have been since then.

[Matt Farah]

This was 2022 Monterey. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I didn't think it was that much.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Big number.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. He didn't want to buy it, but I thought that would be the one to buy. And it needed work, I'm sure.

[Matt Farah]

Concept car, 50 year old, 70 year old concept car, of course, needed work. Okay. Cat Furra says what automaker has the most soulful design language across its current lineup? Does current automotive design bother you? Because they have to do things like pedestrian safety and impact zones and things like that that make cars.

[Chip Foose]

Well, it's no longer the designer that's making the final decisions. You know, there's a lot of engineers involved and. And government is also saying you have to have this, this, this, so. And that all started to change in the late 60s. So.

[Matt Farah]

Unsafe at any speed.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. Yeah. But I absolutely love the cars that were, you know, designed by the design team. And what I like doing is I call them the hard part. Cars where they were chrome bumpers and pieces that you can actually restore and put back together. You know, then we got into plastics and injection molding and all this stuff. And so today, you know, a car that's got a big rubber fascia, you know, when that fascia is, you know, the UV has. Has taken advantage of it and. And destroyed it. Now, you either have to build something new, but the old cars that you could re. Chrome a bumper and hammer out a dent and then repaint it, those are the cars that I love doing because those are also the cars that were designed by a design team.

[Matt Farah]

Kind of ironic, given what you said about the vibe at art center at the time when you were there, that there's no future in doing these hot rods and these classic stuff, and we need to be looking to the future and designing that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, there's clearly such an obvious demand also for people that are doing the kind of thing you're doing, because new cars can't be customized in that way at all.

[Chip Foose]

They can be. You know, I've done some. Like when I did the 2002 Thunderbird, what we did is we pulled that front fascia off, and we epoxied the backside of the fascia and made it into a hard part. Then we started cutting it up and moving things. And then clay modeled over top of that, and then pulled new mold and made epoxy parts, you know, with epoxy resins. And those are the pieces that I put on it. But that can be done.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

It's not all. Not everything has to be done in metal, but, you know, it's all styling, is it?

[Matt Farah]

Not as Rewarding to do it that way.

[Chip Foose]

It's still rewarding.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

It's still. To me, every one of them, it's when you finish a project and you step back and it's that feeling of accomplishment that the whole team gets to step back and look at what they just accomplished. You know, that's why I do this.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Chip Foose]

For that. And that split second of when the owner sees his car for the first time, I want to see his reaction. So when he sees a car, I'm looking at him.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Or her. And it's. It's funny, when we did overhauling and we did the car and. And Bud Bretzman, the producer, he says, okay, we're going to bring the owner in. I'm going to have you in this room, and then we're going to come get you and bring you out. I said, no.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I'm not going in that room. I'm going to stand behind the cameraman. And when he zoomed in on his face, I'm going to be looking at the camera because I want to see his eyes and his reaction when he sees that car for the first time. That's what it was all about for me.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I think that. That. That sort of big reveal moment, not that it was the only show doing that at the time, but, like, after that, there was so many things where it's like, well, we need a big reveal. We need a big re. There's gotta be a reason for the audience to stick around for the. If it wasn't the big reveal, we got to find out if they made money or lose money to find out did they do the flip? Did they get the build done in time for the customer? He's coming on Thursday. Meanwhile, I just did that about my car. I had to get it done for air water on Saturday, and I literally was that guy bad Gardener says when I think of foose design, I think of smooth, rounder edges accentuating American muscle. When you look at modern cars, are you more drawn to European cars than American cars because of more organic shapes compared. Like. Such as McLarens and Bentleys compared to Corvettes and Cadillacs? Is this something you've given thought to at all?

[Chip Foose]

It's interesting. Like, you just said Corvette, and I'm thinking Corvette. There's two cars in the history of car design that were evolutions. One's the Corvette. And the prime example, the most prime example, is the 911.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Where it has just evolved and gotten better and better and better.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And I think Corvette, when they went to the C8, it took a pretty big jump. It's almost not an evolution anymore. Became its own animal again. And, you know, when I think of today's cars, the Corvette is a pretty phenomenal car for the money.

[Matt Farah]

Always has been, but.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, exactly. But styling wise, you know, to me, it's trying to mimic something European.

[Matt Farah]

I think it is. But I think that part of GM's list of requirements prevent it from getting there. Particularly the trunk requirement, which I don't hate that it has a big trunk. I think it's nice that it has a big trunk. Honestly, I don't think customers would be happy with a Corvette that had a tiny trunk. So. I get it. I would.

[Zach Klapman]

I would. I'll take a smaller trunk.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah, I mean, but they sort of fixed it with the Z06 a bit. They went with the center exhaust, and it does improve it with the center exhaust. It's less kind of like dumpy in the sides.

[Chip Foose]

I did some stuff with Hagerty, and it was draw a car with Chip Foose. And they would just pick a car and give it to me and say, what would you do with this? And I was supposed to do a design critique. So they gave me the C8 Corvette and I had to do something. And because it was such a major leap in design, I went back to the C7 and I designed a C8 with the styling cues of a C7.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay.

[Chip Foose]

So did it work? You can look at it if you want. Just put.

[Matt Farah]

Is it a video or is there a final sketch?

[Chip Foose]

Just put chip foo C8.

[Matt Farah]

I actually always thought. I kind of thought if you took a C8 and took the greenhouse and just moved the greenhouse to the rear where it would have been in a C7, you have kind of the same.

[Chip Foose]

I did a little bit of that in this.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, wait, here we go.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, right there on the 23.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. Fortunately, they've left it as a center card. That does look pretty cool. Actually. You know what this reminds me of, especially the back half, reminds me of some of those Pontiac concept cars from, like, 93, 94. Like the banshee. Remember the Banshee?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And all those GM cars that ended.

[Chip Foose]

Up in demolition to the. The final sketch.

[Matt Farah]

We probably can't show the video.

[Chip Foose]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Because we will get copyrighted. But we will jump to the.

[Chip Foose]

There you go.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

There's the top one. See, I don't like.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, see if you can pause on that frame, Zach. Yeah, there you go.

[Chip Foose]

See how the top looks? Yeah, it's pulled way forward. I laid that way back. And then the. That vent in the rear quarter.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Is reminiscent of the C7.

[Matt Farah]

You made the whole rear 3/4 of the car, like, a lot more aggressive, I think. And actually, you made the front much pointier, too. I don't think the pedestrian crash standards are gonna hold up. I think that one may take out some shins, but it does look cool. You know what you are.

[Chip Foose]

You are good at driving.

[Matt Farah]

Shiny stuff. Drawing shiny, man. You can really make it shine.

[Chip Foose]

The. The window in that thing looks so short to me. I was just trying to stretch that out.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Chip Foose]

Lighten that top a little bit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh, they can't afford to have two pieces of glass on the side, though. They're gonna. They're gonna have to make this work.

[Chip Foose]

So I had to do something.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Some people hated it. Other people loved it.

[Matt Farah]

No, that's got a. That reminds me of something I might see from, like, touring or not Zagato, but one of the. One of the Italian design, like, maybe a Castriota could have done something like that. Yeah. It's neat.

[Chip Foose]

Thank you.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. All right. That's cool. Someone else just said. Oh, someone else just asked. I want to see. Go back. Jake Shores, great question. Any cars you did on overhauling that the owner wasn't happy and you had to change things after the show?

[Chip Foose]

No. We were extremely lucky that people loved what we did. And there was only one episode that I. I did what I wanted to do to the vehicle without talking to the family, and I wasn't sure what the reaction was going to be, but we did an 84 El Camino.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And the owner's daughter came in, and she says, I just want it blue. It was brown. What are we going to change? Any other. I just want it blue. That was the only input she gave. And I was sitting at my drawing table. I did the drawing with her, and she was happy with the drawing. I just made it a blue El Camino, changed the wheels on it, and she left. And I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, this is gonna be the most boring episode of overall ever.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And I looked at the El Camino, and I was looking. Looking dead on at the front end, and I was looking at the headlights in the grille, and I thought, that's about the same proportion as a 67, 68 Camaro.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

So I went and got a tape measure, and I measured that, and I went and measured a Camaro, and they were. That's it there.

[Matt Farah]

Damn, does that look good?

[Chip Foose]

I cranked that whole Camaro for an end on.

[Matt Farah]

That looks awesome. It looks so nice.

[Chip Foose]

And then I did the same thing with. With the. With the tailgate.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Camaro tail.

[Matt Farah]

I've seen one of these with a GTO front end on it. It looked pretty cool, too. Yeah, this looks great.

[Chip Foose]

Put the 67 Camaro dash in it. Really? And the bucket seats.

[Matt Farah]

The seats look good, but we did.

[Chip Foose]

All of that metal work in three days.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Chip Foose]

And still. And still finished that car.

[Matt Farah]

Did they notice?

[Chip Foose]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. All right.

[Chip Foose]

But what I did, because of what I was doing, you know, she said her father inherited this car from his father. So I took the original front end and didn't restore it. But there you see the taillights.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

I took the original front end off that El Camino and put it back to exactly the way it was and made a wall hanging out of it for him to put in his garage. That's dad's old El Camino. This one's his. But I didn't talk to any of the family members about making the conversion. I just wanted to do it because I thought it would be cool.

[Matt Farah]

It is cool.

[Chip Foose]

That's what I would want to do to one. So I did it there.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I went ski, but you did the sentimental bit with the wall hanging. You got it in there. I think you. I think you thought were very thoughtful in this. And this one has a wraparound rear windshield. Yes, that's from the. That's.

[Chip Foose]

That's. They all have stock.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they all had a wraparound rear windshield. I didn't know that.

[Chip Foose]

But I got to do my Camaro. El Camino.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty kick ass. That does look really good. Yeah. Go back, Zach, what else we got? We got time for one or two more. Then we can let Chip get out of here before traffic back to OC I know how it is. Oh, Stupor Beetle. I know Chip is a vintage bicycle enthusiast. Are you?

[Chip Foose]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Any chance of him giving some pre war Elgin or Colson the foose treatment? Like his cars? I assume those are bicycles.

[Chip Foose]

You're going to see an episode of American Pickers. It's coming up very soon. Mike Wolfe is a friend of mine, and we have a mutual friend that has a shop. And Mike had a roadster in that shop, and he had instructed the shop to pull the wheels on the car off, and it had an old set of lion hubcaps. And when I saw those in the shop, I said, what are you doing with these? And Tom Hardy has the shop in Georgia. He says, I Got to sell those. I said, what do you want for them? He gave me a price and I bought them. And Mike and I had become friends. And he calls me one day about probably six or eight months after I had bought those hubcaps. He says, dude, he says, I didn't realize that the car I bought had so much history. I got to put those hubcaps back on the car. Can I buy them back from you? I said, of course. He says, what do you want for him? I said, I want an Elgin Bluebird.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Now, just two weeks ago, an Elgin Bluebird sold for $30,000.

[Matt Farah]

Oh.

[Chip Foose]

All original ones.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Chip Foose]

Oh, they. Some of these old bikes, I don't even know.

[Matt Farah]

Can you find a photo of an Elgin Bluebird, please? I don't even know. Would I know one if I saw it?

[Chip Foose]

I have five of them now out of here.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

All right.

[Chip Foose]

I've got about 150 bikes.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. This is a very iconic shaped bicycle. Okay. Yeah. This is like. This is like 50s motorama.

[Chip Foose]

Oh, 35, 36. Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

Oh. So it's our full art deco. This is. This is peak. This is some Y job era.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

God damn, is that pretty. All yours look like that.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. You ride them?

[Chip Foose]

Well, they're not all finished like this. I've got. I've got two, all original ones, and then I've got parts for several other ones. And I have an absolutely over restored, perfect one. Wow. That I did.

[Matt Farah]

For those of you doing the audio version of this, do yourself a favor and Google an Elgin Bluebird. This is. Oh, Zach's looking at a Bonham's listing. Do we have a sale price on this one?

[Chip Foose]

Bonham says that's a restored one, so it won't be as much.

[Matt Farah]

This one says estimate 14 to 16,000.

[Chip Foose]

If it's an original paint bike, they go ridiculous because they're only original once.

[Matt Farah]

Of course.

[Chip Foose]

And that's what the collectors really want.

[Matt Farah]

Of course.

[Chip Foose]

So I've got two original ones, and then I've got others.

[Matt Farah]

Have you ever refused to work on a car because of its. In order to preserve its originality?

[Chip Foose]

I really don't do restoration work because what I want to do is build what I call the bank of intellectual property. When you design something and build it, you own the design. Now I can license that for models, die cast T shirts. My goal is to get paid 10 years from now for what I'm doing today.

[Matt Farah]

That's good.

[Chip Foose]

If you restore something, you only get paid for that day of work.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, man. And that is. There's your nugget right there. Make an Instagram reel out of that. So that's the move. That's why Jay Leno doesn't do specials.

[Chip Foose]

But now, I had a friend of.

[Matt Farah]

Mine, this joke in a club for 30 years.

[Chip Foose]

A friend of mine called me up and he says, hey, my brother in law wants to do some work on an old Dodge that he's got in his mom's garage. And I said, well, what is it? He says, I don't know. I said, well, you want me to come look at it? He said, sure. So he gives me the address and I drive over there. And he's just pushing this 1968 charger out of the garage.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

And. And it's got a dual quad hemi in it, all original red with white interior. And I looked at it and he says, I want to redo the whole thing and make it so I can enjoy it. I said, no, you're not going to do that to this car. You know, typically I won't do restoration. But I said, bring this one to my shop. And it hadn't run since the 80s, and this was probably five years ago. Hadn't run since the 80s. I said, bring it over. And we went through everything mechanical, redid all the brakes. Brakes. Went through absolutely everything mechanical on the car, got everything working. And then I found some old lacquer that would match it. And there was a little bit of rust in two spots. So I fixed those spots for him. And then we put the dog dish hubcaps. It had some craggers on it. Put it all back stock for him. And he enjoys it to this day. But it's an original pink 68 dual quad hemi Charger.

[Matt Farah]

But, I mean, which is amazing. But you didn't then go, let's, we'll just. Let's just go find you another one and we'll build this one. One, you know, we'll build another one. Okay, cool. So once he had. Once he had his.

[Chip Foose]

So I never want to destroy something of value.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

So I helped him on that.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Chip Foose]

Because he's a friend.

[Matt Farah]

So.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, I really don't do that type of work, but I can.

[Matt Farah]

Makes sense. Yeah. So, yeah. And it's Duesenbergs only if we're. Only if we're doing.

[Zach Klapman]

Chop those up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Only if we're doing Duesenbergs.

[Chip Foose]

And you can find one on Hemmings for sure.

[Matt Farah]

What are there 35 of them ever made or something? How many Duesenbergs are there?

[Chip Foose]

Right. Around 600. Is there that many J models? J's, but yeah, they were. There were.

[Matt Farah]

I guess the SJS were very low.

[Chip Foose]

Double dir. Did a lot of race cars.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Chip Foose]

And then he had his A models and then the J models and, you know, they came out with that right at the Depression. The depression, yeah. And that's what really hurt him.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Do you. Do you happen to look a number?

[Zach Klapman]

They're currently 0 for sale on Hemmings.

[Matt Farah]

Just try out Auto Tempest Duesenbergs.

[Chip Foose]

Everybody should. Should look, though.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone go look for Duesenbergs. Yeah. Let's get that search trending. Yeah, man. So if you said your dream product, you ideally scratch build, clean sheet design not based on a car.

[Chip Foose]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

When you do that, how do you determine what the structure of the car is going to be?

[Chip Foose]

Well, you need to know what you're designing for first. You know, is it a race car? Is it a muscle car, Is it a cruiser, Is it a truck? So you know what your purpose of the vehicle is first, and then you build it. And then is it going to be a daily driver? Is it going to be something that's, you know, if it's a truck and we're going to be using this, or is this a show car that we want to be able to win every car show that we ever take it to, but then also be able to drive it across country?

[Matt Farah]

Do you have a lot of folks that ask that you have to basically talk. You said you only like an experienced client, so maybe not. But people ask me about this kind of stuff all the time. They effectively want a race car on the street, you know what I mean? They want some giant blown alcohol motor or some crazy thing, and you go, what are you doing with it? Well, I'm driving to dinner and I'm going to cars and coffee or whatever.

[Chip Foose]

That 62 Corvette that owns had to have 800 plus horsepower. And to me, it's ridiculous to build an absolutely beautiful show car and put that kind of horsepower that can actually tear that car apart.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

You know, I like building cruisers that you're not going to be twisting it because you're putting so much horsepower into it.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, if you have a C1 Corvette and the pedal hits the floorboard with 800 horsepower, you are hitting the first tree. You're not keeping that car on the road.

[Chip Foose]

Myself.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. In trouble, I drove art Morrison's personal C1, which I think was maybe 500 horsepower back in like 09. Remember the. You got the Gran Turismo Award Way more, dude. The thing went sideways in, like, fourth gear. That was crazy.

[Chip Foose]

Do you remember John meehan had that 94 Corvette called time machine?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh, man. I haven't heard about that in a while.

[Chip Foose]

I drove that car seriously on the street, I think.

[Matt Farah]

Was it the first tuner car that was like over a thousand horsepower on the street?

[Chip Foose]

It was crazy, but so much fun to drive.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, my God. I haven't seen. I haven't seen. I haven't heard about this car in forever. This is the most 90s Corvette. Isn't that it right there?

[Chip Foose]

I was on the. It was blue when I drove it.

[Matt Farah]

Isn't it. Second row on the right.

[Zach Klapman]

This is purple. No, I mean. Well, that's.

[Matt Farah]

That's it. Yeah, that's it.

[Chip Foose]

That's it.

[Matt Farah]

It's. This is a terrible. It's a photo of a magazine when.

[Chip Foose]

We were doing Joe Rogan's Cuda.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

At Troy Trapanier's place. John brought that car over, and Joe drove it, and I drove it. But I'm on the street in Illinois doing 205 miles an hour.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Farah]

I drove one of those. I've driven some really neat Corvettes. I drove up the Pratt and Miller C6RS, which was really, really cool. And I Dr. I drove an 87 Callaway, Twin Turbo.

[Chip Foose]

Those were cool too, which was really neat.

[Matt Farah]

But it redlined at 5200 RPM. It was like a diesel. It was like 550 pounds of torque. Apparently it did 180 miles an hour. But, like, I don't know how the math worked on the rev. So it was the weirdest thing.

[Chip Foose]

Wow. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Has this time machine car just vanished into the ether?

[Chip Foose]

Yeah. I don't know. I know that Troy repainted it, Ended up doing some really cool graphics on it.

[Matt Farah]

Cool.

[Chip Foose]

But someone will send.

[Matt Farah]

Somebody will dig it out and. And send it in.

[Chip Foose]

So John took. Took us out, and we go through corn fields, and we're driving way out in the middle of nowhere to, you know, take this car and. And have some fun with it. He comes around the corner. We're driving down. I said, oh, there's a cop car. He says, yeah, this is my brother. Because what he did is when we got out to a certain team.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

And we made a left turn. We drove about 10 miles down that road.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

His brother with the cop car is blocking, so no traffic.

[Matt Farah]

This is the move we do. We employ a similar strategy. Without the cops, we go. One of our favorite roads that we use for filming is A dead end road.

[Chip Foose]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

So you go to the end.

[Chip Foose]

This is what we were on.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You go to the end and then you work your way back and that road is effectively cleared.

[Chip Foose]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

There's no. We know there's nobody there. That's crazy.

[Chip Foose]

We put him there so nobody would come down. It.

[Matt Farah]

We. We don't have a cop. Okay. What do you want to see?

[Zach Klapman]

We're not going 205.

[Matt Farah]

Also. I don't have a cop. Yeah, yeah. We're also not, like, maxing out.

[Chip Foose]

What's amazing at 205 miles an hour is the elevation change that you feel in the street.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. The road gets awfully up and down. I've done Silver State a couple times, and you get that. Silver State's annoying. You can go faster just getting to Silver State than you can go dirty. We're gonna let you go. I know you got a long drive and you're a busy man, but I really appreciate the time.

[Chip Foose]

Pleasure. I really love your place here.

[Matt Farah]

Thank you very much. If you ever want to abandon a car somewhere, I would encourage you to do it here.

[Chip Foose]

How many can you take?

[Matt Farah]

We can do 140 cars. This man has a lot of cars. The other store, we're able to do more. Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Down at south, and that's in Garden Grove.

[Matt Farah]

In Gardena.

[Chip Foose]

Or Gardena.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chip Foose]

That's closer to me. Is it? All right, I need to store about 12 cars.

[Matt Farah]

Talk to me. Talk to me after this. Are you going to air water? Are you into Porsche at all? Are you interested?

[Chip Foose]

I like Porsches.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, they're pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

This weekend. You gonna come?

[Chip Foose]

Where's it at?

[Matt Farah]

At the OC Convention Center.

[Chip Foose]

Oh, that's real close.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, it's right by you.

[Chip Foose]

Is this my invitation?

[Matt Farah]

Come.

[Chip Foose]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

I literally have extra tickets, but. But you can. You're Chip Foosh. You can come. I have two cars in the show. My. My Pink Spider and my Taycan, which I just got back today.

[Chip Foose]

I'd like to check it out. You know what I would love to do is a 914.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. I'd like to see a foose 914.

[Chip Foose]

Yeah, I'd like to do some really fun stuff to that.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, this sounds like a plan.

[Chip Foose]

I did a sketch a little while ago. It was kind of a mix of. And I did it for. For Hemmings on that. You know, we were looking at all the cars, and I looked 914, and then I did a sketch of what if the designers of the 930 back in the 80s, did a 914.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Are you sure they weren't the same people?

[Chip Foose]

They're the same people.

[Matt Farah]

But that's the 930 style.

[Chip Foose]

The wraparound bumpers.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Chip Foose]

All right. And the blisters in the fenders.

[Matt Farah]

Is that drawing up on Hemmings? Can I. Can we see that somewhere?

[Chip Foose]

I don't know if it's up yet or not.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. But it will be. It's part of the thing.

[Chip Foose]

Okay. It was like. I say it was like a five, ten minute sketch.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And then we'll, you know, and put 900 horsepower in it and drive it to Cars and coffee.

[Chip Foose]

Exactly. But it got me thinking. I. You know, so now I'm looking at 914s and hemmings.

[Matt Farah]

I would like to see what you could do with a 914. I'd also like to see what you could do with a 920.

[Chip Foose]

There you go.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, whoa. You know what's funny? You've sort of made it look like a Toyota Mr.2 a little bit. Yeah. There's some slant nose going on there and.

[Chip Foose]

But I love those little turns. The marker lights on the 914.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Chip Foose]

So from the side, it still looks like a 911.

[Matt Farah]

I'll be honest. This drawing looks like you have done a bunch of acid and tried to draw a 914. It does look a little like. It looks real crazy. I'd love to see you try to build this. It does look nuts. It would be insane. What a treat. Thank you for stopping by, Chip. I appreciate it. Someone out there, please just write him a check and have him build you a car. That's really what we're going for.

[Chip Foose]

I want to do your 914 for you.

[Matt Farah]

The 914. Has anyone been dreaming of a 914 with pedigree? Let's go.

[Chip Foose]

Thank you so much.

[Matt Farah]

Thank you, Chip. And thank everyone for listening. Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions today. And I will see you next time. Goodbye.