Penned by renowned designer Chip Foose, the Foose Coupe is the ultimate 13, 2007 Rights to the first Foose Coupe available to the public will be sold at No Reserve during the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event from March 28-April 1, 2007, in Palm Beach, Fla. Inaugural Public Sale of the High-Powered Foose Coupe to Take Place at the Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach Auction Only 50 will be built, and it looks to be quite the badass machine, blending classic lines and modern tech to create a very desirable new toy for hedge fund managers everywhere. "Hemisfear," is a carbon-fiber-bodied hot rod powered by a mid-mounted 392 HEMI crate motor dishing out 550 horsepower. The rights to the first car being sold to the public will beĪuctioned off to one of BJ's seemingly endless supply of deep-pockets bidders, and once the paperwork's all straightened out, the winner will be given the opportunity to meet with Chip Foose himself to select the car's The car is being built for long-time customer Wes Rydell.Īll that - and more - from the just-52-years-old Foose certainly deserves a tribute at the Petersen.If you're interested in being the first person to lay hands on the newįoose Coupe, you'll want to make sure you're ready when Barrett-Jackson's Palm Beach shindig goes down later this month. His company, Foose Design, is currently building a ’39 Cadillac Sixty Special based on a 1935 drawing by GM designer Art Ross. “If Ramone (from the 'Cars' franchise) was a person, in many ways he’d be Chip,” said Ward.įoose is best known to the public for the nine seasons of the hot-rod build show " Overhaulin’." Before that he worked for nine years at Hot Rods by Boyd back in that shop’s glory days. His work appeared not only in the Pixar animated films " Cars" and " Cars 2," but throughout Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure. “He told me, ‘I’ve broken up too many marriages,'” said Voth.įoose is credited with four Ridler winners and eight AMBRs - more than anyone. Voth also found it interesting that Foose asks the client’s spouse to sign the build contract, too. “I’ve worked for a lot of builders (in architecture) who are also geniuses and I’ve found there are two things you don’t ask them about: how much time and how much money.”
“I didn’t know at that time that he had just finished a restoration on one.”
“He did this amazingly intricate portrait of a Karmann Ghia that was by far the best of anyone in that room.” “In the very first class I had him in at Art Center, I asked the class to draw a Karmann Ghia,” said Stewart Reed, head of transportation design at that Pasadena institution. It’s very rare to meet somebody who has everything and is humble about it.” “Chip has talents as a designer and a builder. “At Pixar we have all kinds of very talented people, people who specialize in one area and are very good at it,” said Jay Ward. “A design is only as good as it can be built,” said collector and Foose client Don Voth. “I say, ‘These cars are all expensive and take a long time to do and it costs just as much to make an ugly one so why not make a nice one?” “People ask me, ‘Why do you use Chip? Isn’t he expensive?” said Foose client Wes Rydell, whose cars have won both the Ridler and the AMBR. They rolled the Round-Door Rolls out of the atrium and rolled the Foose Imposter in, then set up about a hundred chairs for the fans and set up a stage for Foose and a few assorted Foose-related dignitaries to wax poetic on their favorite carmaker. The celebration took place Saturday, July 23, in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Whatever the year, Foose has been around a long time and it’s high time to celebrate.however many years it’s been. But you could make a case that this is his 40 th year in design, too. So organizers of the Foose 30 th Anniversary in Design Celebration at the Petersen Automotive Museum decided to start with his first “paying” job, with ASHA Corporation in his native Santa Barbara in 1986. He was so active as a youth that picking the “start” of his design career was a little awkward. He bought his first car the same year, his dad’s 1956 F-100 shop truck, and spent the next three years customizing it.
He painted his first car, a Porsche 356, at age 13. “Sometimes I’d fall asleep in the car I was working on, get up, come home to take a shower and then go to school.” “My mom would call at 4 in the morning and ask when I was coming home,” the younger Foose recalled. Chip Foose grew up in his dad Sam’s hot rod shop in Santa Barbara and spent many days and nights there building cars.