CHIP
NZV8: It’s great that 3M has brought you out here; it must have been around 2005 that you were last in New Zealand?
Chip Foose: I’m not quite sure of the year; it was a busy trip, though. We toured New Zealand and then we shipped the cars to Australia. The rest of the group went to Australia to do a few car shows up there, and I flew home to do Overhaulin’, which we are doing again now.
Going back way before Overhaulin’, can you tell us about the start of your career — it came around through your dad, Sam?
Yes, my dad was my hero. To this day, he’s still my hero. We lost him in November, unfortunately, but I consider that my career is an extension of his. I learned a lot of my taste from my father, and you can’t teach taste; you either have it or you don’t. It’s funny, we could both go to the same car show and not be together and come back and say ‘Did you see this car?’ ‘Did you see this car’, and they were all the same ones. Or a customer could come up and ask me what I would do to their car sitting there, and I’d say, ‘Well, I’d do this, this, and this’, and give them a colour, and my dad would give them the same advice.
Do you think that that’s because you’ve learned it from him, or is it just instinct?
Instinct; we both saw the same thing. As a designer, you see things that you want to change or make alterations to, but it’s also a curse, because you can also look at a brand-new car, or buy a brand-new car, and, instead of enjoying this beautiful nice brand-new car … all you see is the things you want to change, and you just focus on that; it drives you crazy until you get a chance to fix it.
Is it true that you crashed your dad’s truck the first time you drove it?
The ’56 pickup that Bud Brutsman, the producer of Overhaulin’, stole from my shop then called my dad in to run the 'A-Team', and they built for me, that’s the same truck that my dad owned. When I was 12 years old, he taught me how to drive, and I ran right into the front end of a Rolls-Royce that was parked in front of the shop. Yes, it is true. I have that grille hanging over the office door in my shop. You go through the workshop to get into the office, and it’s hanging there as my reminder that everything can go wrong real quick.
How about the next generation — now your own kids are growing up, will they follow in your footsteps?
My son Brock is 19; he’s at Chapman University studying film and wants to be a director. I think he actually wants to be. He allowed me to do the alterations and helped me, and that’s the same thing I’ve done with Brock. If he wants to come to the shop and make alterations to his car, I’ll work with him and we’ll do it.
