What I'd Do Differently: Chip Foose

From the August 2016 issue

C/D: So which is better: the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) or the Ridler award?

CF: Boy, that’s getting political, isn’t it? The difficult thing with the AMBR award right now is that there’s no target on the wall about what you need to build. The way they’ve done the judging, your guess is as good as anybody’s about what you need to build. It’s not based on difficulty to build. It’s a choice now, not a judged trophy. As a builder you’re thinking, “We’ve got to push the envelope,” and that’s not what it’s about now.

C/D: What is the pitfall of licensing your name?

CF: You’re not in control of what someone else is doing to your reputation.

C/D: Unique Performance in Texas, which collapsed in 2007, had a license to build ’69 Camaros under your name . . .

CF: How did you know I was thinking of them? That was a nightmare. All I did was a drawing, and I was supposed to collect a royalty when he [Doug Hasty] sold or delivered a car. When he didn’t deliver cars, people came after me. I can say that just about everything I made on Overhaulin’ was spent there. Just protecting us. Legal bills.

C/D: Have you learned how to protect yourself from that?

CF: Well, I married an attorney. She helped us, and we got through it.

C/D: Are you going into the shop every day? Or are you spending more time on designs?

CF: That’s the great thing about this job. My day is different every single day. I may stay home—I have a studio at home. Last night, I was in the shop until one in the morning fabricating on Wes Rydell’s ’39 Cadillac that we’re building. It’s going to be very stately. It will look like an original Cadillac until you look underneath.

C/D: Is there something you’d like to build?

CF: What has really been on my mind a lot is that I want to build a Duesenberg. I would love to find a chassis and design and build my own body. That’s how they used to build them back in the ’20s and the ’30s.

C/D: Could you hot-rod something like a Tesla?

CF: I don’t think it’s impossible. I don’t care what the underneath is as long as I get to be creative and build something no one has ever seen before.

C/D: With TV exposure comes fame. How is that to deal with?

CF: The biggest downfall about the success of Overhaulin’ is that I just can’t take my son and enjoy a car show. It’s not fun for him to stand there when everyone wants to take a picture or get an autograph. Which I don’t mind doing, but it breaks my heart that some of my favorite memories with my dad are walking around shows and looking at all these different cars and talking about them. I’m sad that I don’t get to share those moments with my son and share the passion that we have for cars.

C/D: What’s the upside to fame and fortune?

CF: I wouldn’t say that I’ve made a fortune, but the upside is that a lot of people want to work with you.

C/D: What do you think of things like the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer?

CF: It’s great that they’ve made a business out of that. It makes it really easy to be repetitive. I know I would get bored being repetitive. I want to do something different and new every time.

C/D: Are there cars you look at and think shouldn’t be touched?

CF: There are a lot of cars that don’t need to be messed with. I don’t know if you saw the Pantera I just finished. That’s a car I thought if anybody messes with it, they try to make it like a Ricky Racer car. And I thought, just make it with beautiful wheels, bring the car down, but leave the body alone.

C/D: Are people afraid to cut into old cars now?

CF: Time has become the expense. It used to be that the parts were expensive and the labor was always affordable. It’s at the point now that the labor is the expensive part and there’s less creativity. The biggest crime happening in America is the fact that they’ve pulled all these shop classes out of schools. Kids today, their dream isn’t to build something, it’s to buy something.

C/D: Ultimately, was being on Overhaulin’ a net positive?

CF: It was definitely a positive. I really enjoyed doing that for people. And it’s more fun to do it for people who could never imagine having something like this in their life. The first five years that we filmed, we did every one of those cars in eight days or less. We did 29 cars in nine months. That was me not sleeping for an average of 24 days a month. It was a complete burnout by the end of the third season. Then we were off for four years. When they asked me if I wanted to come back and do the show again, I said I’d love to. But give me three weeks per car. What would I do differently? I’d never agree to the eight days or less.

C/D: What would you still like to do?

CF: If I knew what was happening in the future, I’d be doing it now.