Chip Foose is a car guy’s car guy.
Foose, a native of Southern California and the son of artist and car builder Sam Foose, is one of the top custom-car builders in the world, and his work has won virtually every major award worth winning.
In 1997, at the age of 31, Foose became the youngest person every inducted into the Hot Rod Hall of Fame. He was worked on or built seven different winners of the prestigious America’s Most Beautiful Roadster Award at the Grand National Roadster Show. Foose has won the “Riddler” Award at the Detroit Autorama multiple times and has captured the Good Guys Street Rod of the Year Award a staggering eight times.
Yeah, Foose is the real deal.
The weekend, Foose is at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he’s working with 3M at the Pennzoil AutoFair presented by Advance Auto Parts. The AutoFair runs through Sunday afternoon.
We caught up with Foose Thursday morning at the track. Foose is articulate about his work and even more than that, he’s passionate about his lifelong love of his work.
“I knew exactly what I wanted to do form the age of 7 years old,” Foose said in an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com.
One of Foose’s myriad talents is having a sharp eye.
“Inspiration comes from everywhere,” he said. “Other cars that have been built. You see things and think, ‘OK, I’d love to do something similar, but maybe I’ll do this.’
“Or a lot of times, it’s the customer coming in,” said Foose. “They tell me what kind of car they want to build, then I start looking at those cars and see what may have been done in the past. But I’ll ask them many, many questions” about what they like and want.
And that gets to one of Foose’s secrets: Most of his customers are male, but it’s critical to get buy-in at home.
“I pay real, real close attention to what his wife likes: How she decorates the house, what kind of colors she wears, what she really likes,” Foose said. “Because if they’re going to spend the money on a car, which is really expensive, I want her to absolutely fall in love with the car as well.
“So, if you do a beautiful, elegant design, generally, the wife is going to love it as well,” Foose said. “And if you get the wife to love it and she wants to go to these shows with her husband and share the experience with him, then you’ve hit a home run. Because if I build something for him and she doesn’t like it all, she’s never going to want to be around it and he may never build another car.”
Foose brought five of his cars to the AutoFair, all of which are amazing builds.
When I asked him which was his favorite car he smiled.
“Boy, that’s like saying, ‘Which is your favorite kid?’” Foose said. “… It’s the people that I spent some time with to create this piece of artwork. You remember all those memories. They just flood back into my head. So to pick my favorite would be so difficult.”
Photo credit: Tom Jensen
