It seems that everyone is aware of who Chip Foose is nowadays, especially since his "Overhaulin"' TV show has just wrapped up its fifth season. But hot rodders have known about Foose long before you started seeing his company logo plastered everywhere, before his involvement in Christopher Titus' self-named television show-- back to when he designed wheels and cars for Boyd Coddington in the late '90s.
But STREET RODDER can say "we knew ya when" as we included Chip in an interview on his famous father, customizer Sam Foose in the April '92 issue of the magazine. No one knew the then-27-year-old would ascend to the heights he now enjoys but one thing has been assured these past 16 years: the kid has always had talent.
There is so much to look at...
There is so much to look at on this simple car you don't know where to start. But one area might be the '36 Ford cowl that was used instead of the original '32 unit. Chip used it because there is far less kick in the side panels making for an easier transition between the doors and the hood sides.
Having been involved on the design and fabrication end of many award winning cars (his Huntington Beach-based crew has built multiple America's Most Beautiful Roadster and Don Ridler Memorial Award winners), his latest self-owned project--the P-32 roadster--is an about-face to what typically rolls out of his shop, but not in the technique of how it was built or, more importantly, the "why" it was built. To find out more, we sat down with Chip one evening at his house in Southern California, catching him on his only night home between the cross-country trips that make up his life nowadays.
Not only does this interview specifically cover his roadster, but also subjects as diverse as aircraft, furniture, and yacht design, where he gets his inspiration for wheel designs, what he feels about the differences between rat rods and smoothie cars, when a hot rod is truly finished, what it takes to win the Ridler or AMBR, what car he's working on now that he hopes will be the next Ridler winner, plus the other car he almost built instead of this one.
Also, though this is a feature on the "finished" vehicle, STREET RODDER has also run two different articles of the build-up on this roadster, covering the engine and trans placement in the November 2005 issue while the unique tie-rod-less, bell-crank front steering was highlighted in the July 2006 issue.
That original 1992 STREET RODDER interview with Sam Foose closed with the statement "Chip has to leave the interview at this point. But we're sure we'll be hearing from him in the future." We just hope it won't be another 16 years before we do!
For an even more vintage look,...
For an even more vintage look, all of the wiring used in and around Chip's roadster is wrapped in cloth. The '39 Lincoln V12, mated to a '39 Lincoln side-shift trans, displaces 292 cubes and is fed by a pair of Stromberg 97s. Check out how the exhaust is routed from the heads to special baffles before exiting at the hood sides.
The seats came from a WWII-era...
The seats came from a WWII-era B-17, as did the seatbelts. The dash is a narrowed '38 Lincoln unit, while the red Bakelite steering wheel came out of a '40s-era Lincoln. The doors have been lengthened two inches--a measurement that was taken out of the length of the rear quarters.
You can see some of the intricate...
You can see some of the intricate work done on the brackets used throughout the vehicle--they all look like they've been stamped when in reality they were all hand fabricated and welded.
The nose design was first...
The nose design was first work up by Chip and Tim Fitzpatrick in a full-size clay model, from which fiberglass molds were pulled. The molds were taken to Marcel's Custom Metal in Corona, CA, where they used them to fabricate a shell out of aluminum. The nosecone was stamped at Quality Metalcrafters in Detroit.
Motorcycle rubber wraps the...
Motorcycle rubber wraps the 18-inch '32 Ford wire rims, but the rear rims were widened 2 inches by using two other '32 wheels.