06 | GLASURIT – FOOSE CONTROL
Above: One of Chip’s hot rods, the renowned Hemisfear, is featured on ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’.
of was that huge bull bar at the back, you know that protects the tractor if it tips over. So rather than having the big cover on it, like they do, I turned it into what would be the F1 umbrella that the umbrella girls hold. You’re very busy with your show, your company and I know that you’re involved with children’s charities. Could you explain to me a typical day in the life of Chip? I generally leave the house around 6:30 or 7am and I have a contract with Disney where I do paintings for them and they sell the paintings. I have to sign those so I’m often there first thing in the morning, signing a few of those. Then I’ll either go to my shop or the ‘Overhaulin’ office first to make sure that everyone has a direction and then I’ll go to the other. Then I might run up to the wheel company to check on how the wheels are coming in as far as for a certain project or to pick something up. I’m generally working at either my shop first then ‘Overhaulin’ but I try to split my time up between both of them each day. Unless we’re in a crunch at one place then I’m there all day. Usually I’ll try to get home around 6:30-7 at night, have dinner with the kids. If I don’t fall asleep on the couch then I go back to one shop or the other to try and catch up. Then my studio is at home. We have a studio at the shop, studio at the set and then I also have one at home. This is where I’m generally doing all the drawings that I need to take to the shop the next day to give out so they have direction. With regard to your partnership with BASF with your ‘Color by Foose’,
how do you choose? What makes it in to the selection? The colours are in my head and the colours that I’ve mixed are the colours that I’ve mixed for projects or colours that I’d like to use on projects that I have not used yet. We were actually doing the factory pack where you buy it with the label and everything and its actually very hard to do and expensive. So I told BASF let’s just make the formulas available and then anybody can have them. It doesn’t need to be a factory pack. That’s the way we’re doing them now.
"I was blown away with the quality and the quantity of cars." A lot of young designers look to you for their inspiration. Who would you say is your inspiration? My father. I like to consider that my career is an extension of his and I’m still trying to make him proud. He’s sure to be proud that you were the youngest inductee into the Hot Rod Hall of Fame. How did that feel? It’s a great feeling, but I still think that my father was more deserving than me. Why do you say that? Well as a kid I remember being blown away by the stuff that he was doing and he also worked
for other people that got inducted. You never want to overshadow what your father has done. He is my hero and in my mind he is better than what I have done. So what cars live in your garage at home? What do you use to go and get milk? My daily driver is a Ford-produced 500 Foose Edition pickup. That’s pretty much my daily driver but I also have a couple of ‘69 Camaros, and a 2002 Thunderbird that I call the ‘speed bird’ because it’s completely modified. I have a ‘42 Buick convertible, a ‘47 Ford convertible, ‘53 Corvette. I have a lot of cars parked in a friend’s warehouse I have cars that reside in a couple of museums. At home, I have one of the Camaros, the Speedbird, the F-150, and then my wife has two Mercedes. She has an S550 and a GL 450, which is an SUV. So you’ve had a very busy weekend. Did you enjoy it? Yeah, it was fun. There are some amazing cars. I had seen some of those cars in magazines from Australia but of course, I had never been here before. I was blown away with the quality and the quantity of cars. I figured I would see a few that were high quality but there are a lot of them here. Yeah it was amazing. How do you think the Australian cars stand up on a world scale? I think these are some of the better cars that I’ve seen, going around the world and going to different shows. There is some beautiful stuff in here. I would put them in America any day.