Chip Foose

Chip Foose is a legendary designer of hot rods and concept cars. His name became famous with the hit TV show "Overhaulin'", in which they would "steal" someone's beloved project and give it the glow-up of a lifetime. The show was one of Discovery's biggest hits, lasting ten seasons, and was a predecessor to so many flip/repair shows across television. But Chip's journey began years before that and his successes have only grown since then. In this show we learn about how he became such a skilled and celebrated designer/fabricator. https://www.chipfoose.com/ Recorded April 23, 2025 Check out the full lineup and get 15 percent off your first order at https://www. TRUEWERK.com/TIRE CarGurus Go to https://www.cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us! https://www. Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. You know it and I know it. Your favorite car podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Off the Record as always, but asterisk very important, we're getting rid of the app code. It's been problematic. People have been having problems using the code on the Off the Record app. Instead, you want to support your favorite podcast when you use Off the Record. The best legal aid service, legal aid service is probably not the right term. Service to help connect you with a lawyer to fight your tickets and win 97% of the time. That's Off the Record. Go to offtherecord.com/tst.

• 0:42Matt Farah?

  They'll get you all legal services 10% off when you book through us. Right? offtherecord.com/tst. They're the best, but ditch the code on the app. You can use the app once you make an account, right? The app is still good, but there's something about the software and the code through the app. It just, it's causing problems. So it's gone, banished, right? Like your tickets, like the points off your record. offtherecord.com/tst. Love them. Alright folks, on this episode, we are back in studio with a legend. Chip Foose is here. This guy, if you're of our age, a guy in your 40s, you know who Chip Foose is. This guy has built hundreds and hundreds of cars.

• 1:27Matt Farah?

  He has multiple Riddler awards, multiple Grand National Roadster Show winner. Grand National Roadster Show called him the builder of the decade. The guy has 50 years almost fabricating cars because he was doing it when he was a kid at his dad's shop too. He was a co-host and the lead designer and fabricator on Overhaulin'. His stories are amazing. He is in fact truly legendary. And it's a real privilege to have Chip Foose in studio for the Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go. Just have Chip Foose do everything. Why even go anywhere else? We're in. This is it. Chip Foose in studio.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Well, thanks for having me.

• 2:07Matt Farah?

  What a treat. I usually see you with stuff like SEMA, but now it's a little, it's like a little jarring, like you're here.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  What was the first year you ever went to SEMA?

• 2:15Matt Farah?

  2007. You all long dominated it before.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  What year were you born?

• 2:21Matt Farah?

  1981.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Eighty-one, I graduated high school eighty-two.

• 2:24Matt Farah?

  I know, and you look, you look way, you look younger than me if you put us next to each other. Yeah, no, you've been around, you've had a hell of a career.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Eighty-five was the first year I went to SEMA.

• 2:32Matt Farah?

  Eighty-five?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  And I've been every year since.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Wow, how many people were there in eighty-five?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  It was one room.

• 2:39Matt Farah?

  One hall? Wait, let me move this a little closer to you. Just one hall, right?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Just one hall.

• 2:42Matt Farah?

  And like, was it, so, was it, so you know how, you know how at SEMA like there's, there's like the new trendy stuff every year?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  You know where Ford's booth used to be, now I believe it's Toyota.

• 2:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah, which is like the, the, the deck, the balcony, right?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Okay, well, we had that balcony, and then the room that's just below it, that was what SEMA was.

• 3:05Matt Farah?

  That was the whole show, wow.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  And then it started to build in the room behind after that.

• 3:08Matt Farah?

  And who were you there on behalf of? Were you with Cottington at that time?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  No, at that time, I worked at a company called Asha Corporation.

• 3:15Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  And we designed and developed a product called Jiro Disk.

• 3:21Matt Farah?

  Oh, J-I-R-O-D-I-S-C.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is in every Jeep.

• 3:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  We developed that in Santa Barbara.

• 3:26Matt Farah?

  Oh, okay, cool.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  At, at the company that I was at, and I knew Tony Thacker.

• 3:32Matt Farah?

  That name is familiar, but I can't place who's that?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  He came over from England, and he worked with Gary Metters from Good Guys Association. So I met him through Good Guys, but he was working with SEMA at the time, and he did something called the Innovation Center. And he called me and said, "Hey, do you want to put your Jiro Disk in the Innovation Center?" So that's where I showed it.

• 3:53Matt Farah?

  And that was like, that was like a ten by ten within SEMA?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  No, it was about a three by three. In the Innovation Center, I put, I put some illustrations, and we built a cutaway model, so it showed you exactly what it did.

• 4:07Matt Farah?

  And for those who have absolutely no idea and have never heard of it, what did it do?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Okay, there's a star and a ring from a oil pump that was in the differential, and if both wheels are spinning at the same time, it does nothing. But if one wheel would break loose, then that star and, and ring would pump oil into a clutch pack, which would transfer power to the other wheel and lock it up, make it a, like a positive traction.

• 4:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  And then within two rotations of those wheels, if they start to spin at the same rate, then that oil would bleed off. So you, if you got into a slippery situation, the other wheel would take over and you could, you know, find traction. And now it's in every Jeep. We ended up partnering with Dana, and they started building it. But right at that time is when I left Asher Corporation and went to work for Boyd Cottington.

• 5:01Matt Farah?

  Okay, so what was your like, when you were working with the, to do the Giro disc thing, like what was your actual like role in that? Was it a big enough, a small enough company that you were like directly?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  We were a design group.

• 5:13Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And while we were there,

• 5:17Speaker 01

  my job was to come up with four patentable ideas every quarter and patent them.

• 5:22Matt Farah?

  Whoa.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Or, or prototype them. And one of the ideas that came up with it, you know, your garage door remote?

• 5:27Matt Farah?

  Did you find that you had like one quarter worth of ideas? And then you were like, Q2, you're like, oh shit, what do I do now?

• 5:35Speaker 01

  We had a wish list from General Motors of things that they wished they could do.

• 5:39Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  And working off that.

• 5:41Matt Farah?

  God, I'd love to see a list like that.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  It was really cool.

• 5:44Matt Farah?

  I'd love to see a list like that from 1985 compared to a list like that today. In 1985, it would probably be like, I don't know, like add, add 100 horsepower to every vehicle. Now it's probably like, find out the shopping habits of everyone who buys our cars. It's probably like data tracking now.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  They wanted seats that would fit a body so you could change them. So we developed, you know, seats with airbags in them.

• 6:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  That would contour, which is used today.

• 6:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Uh, one of the ideas I had was, uh, you know, your garage remote back in the eighties to open your, your car garage door.

• 6:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  In the car, it was just had a spring clip on it and it sat on your visor.

• 6:23Matt Farah?

  Of course. Some still do.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  So, yeah. So we developed the idea of integrating that button into the car.

• 6:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, HomeLink?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Well, the very first one that I did, I took your garage remote and put it inside of a box in the engine compartment. And you know, in your Jacuzzis, you have that pneumatic button?

• 6:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  You push the button in the little light, yeah. So I had two of those, two of those little pneumatic bellows. One in the box. And when you pushed it on your dash, it actually pushed your button in the box, in the engine compartment. And then, of course, we worked with it, we got the patent, and we sold that patent to Prince Corporation.

• 7:01Matt Farah?

  That's crazy, the HomeLink. The first HomeLink was a pneumatic jacuzzi button. Oh, that's awesome.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  So we sold that patent to Prince Corporation in Holland, Michigan.

• 7:12Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  And I'd like to say we, I was just an employee.

• 7:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  But I loved what I was doing there, it was cool.

• 7:17Matt Farah?

  Well, if you have a wish list, oh man, that makes it so much better, doesn't it?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  It was pretty cool.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Well, you were trained as a designer, right? Like art center stuff?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  So this sounds like you were also doing engineering in a way? Or were you just like the idea guy?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Well, I grew up with my dad as a fabricator in building hot rods.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And then I ended up, I don't know if you've ever seen the big helmet car vehicles? That the NFL uses to fool? Well, I designed that for Baker Sporttronics. And then they made the little toys called the End Runner. NFL has them.

• 7:48Matt Farah?

  Isn't that that same, the helmet car? Isn't that that same joint that from like Major League? That was the baseball?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, the baseball ones also.

• 7:54Matt Farah?

  That's the same shit, right? Yeah, yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Harry Bradley did the baseball ones back in the 70s. And I did the NFL football ones. That was in the 80s.

• 8:04Matt Farah?

  You should bring that back.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  It was pretty fun, but when Alon Kline, you remember the Kline car?

• 8:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Back in the 70s?

• 8:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Well, Alon owned, he had a company that was called Sternberger Kline.

• 8:21Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  And Mark Sternberger, who's an illustrator? You may have seen his work, he was always in, rode in track. Well, when I went to work for them, I went into the shop and I was, I was working as a model builder and prototype stuff. Mark Nieper was Mark Sternberger's apprentice. When Mark Nieper left, he knew I could draw. He came in and said, hey, you might want to go talk to Mark.

• 8:44Matt Farah?

  Were you good at drawing when you were very young, or did you, were you taught it in school?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  I started drawing when I was three years old. My father could draw. And then at the age of seven, I met Alex Tremblous, who designed the Tucker. He worked for Auburn Court Duesenberg and was the head of the Thunderbird Studios through the 60s.

• 9:01Matt Farah?

  Do you seem, Alex must have been old, right?

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:04Matt Farah?

  Okay, I was gonna say, because you seem, the timelines don't seem to cross there. Just because you probably look young, but yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  But he was friends with my dad.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  I think Chip is a Highlander. I think Chip doesn't age. He looked the same. I met you like 20 years ago.

• 9:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you're ageless.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Alex didn't live far from my dad's shop, and he would come up just to see the projects. But he also would build these really cool futuristic vehicles out of wood. And he would bring them up and have my dad paint them.

• 9:31Matt Farah?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Later, I started painting them. We were good friends. He's the one that wrote my letter of recommendation to Art Center. He taught me some stuff, how to draw. Like I said, I met him when I was seven.

• 9:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Well, I had gone halfway through Art Center and I left. I couldn't afford to stay. That's when I went to work for Alon Cleney and Mark Sternberger.

• 9:50Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Ended up being Mark's apprentice for six, or for three years. I was there for a total of six years. And Alon is the one that paid for me to go back to school and graduate.

• 10:03Matt Farah?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty cool.

• 10:05Matt Farah?

  When you were, when you were at Art Center, because like, you know, if you hang out in Southern California long enough, like, all roads lead through Art Center, pretty much. You know, we've talked to Freeman, and we've talked to a variety of other people who were there. Was anyone else, were you contemporaries with other people at Art Center who went on to do great things?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting, you know, I started in 84. I left in 86. I went back in 89, graduated in 90.

• 10:30Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  So I met a lot of people in the industry. And I would say that Art Center was the door opener for me to, you know, a lot of different things. And my senior project was the Plymouth Prowler.

• 10:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  ended up going to production.

• 10:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It was, well, you did the Hemisphere, which was my first exposure to you.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:51Matt Farah?

  It was enormous.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  And my model from Art Center is what became the.

• 10:55Matt Farah?

  That's what I'm saying. That's where I was going with that. This is crazy, right?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  To say that, to say that I designed the Prowler would be a slap in the face to the engineers and designers that did it at Chrysler.

• 11:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  But my model was the inspiration for it.

• 11:07Matt Farah?

  Which is amazing.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 11:09Matt Farah?

  And, but, wait, so the Hemisphere was built in oh six, seven, something like that?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  My model was done at Art Center in ninety.

• 11:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And it took me seventeen years.

• 11:19Matt Farah?

  That's what I was gonna say.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  We finished it in twenty oh seven.

• 11:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that was the first year I met you.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:24Matt Farah?

  When that car was being unveiled at SEMA, which I guess was oh seven, right?

• 11:28Speaker 01

  We had the green one and the black one.

• 11:29Matt Farah?

  The black one.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  In the Chrysler booth.

• 11:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you let me like sit in the black one and poke around. This was a, this, I mean, if you're just looking at a photo of it, it's stunningly beautiful.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 11:39Matt Farah?

  What you can't see from the outside really is that it is a mid, a rear mid-engine vehicle.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:45Matt Farah?

  Uh, which makes it infinitely cooler than, than the Prowler, even though it kind of vaguely resembles a Prowler. There's the angle you want. That's the rear three-quarter from above with the velocity stacks. What motor was in this? It was a Hemi.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's interesting.

• 12:00Matt Farah?

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• 13:23Matt Farah?

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• 16:05Speaker 01

  You know, I met a lot of people when I was at Art Center, including Tom Gale. That's who I did my final presentation to. And Tom became a friend, and I actually did several projects with him. But I told him that I was starting to build it, and he says, "What are you doing motor-wise?" And I said, "I really don't know yet." He said, "Can we do a Hemi in it?" He says, "I'm bringing back the old Hemi." So, in 97, I got a call. He says, "I'm gonna have some people call you." So, Jim Bratton from Chrysler Mopar Performance called me and he said, "Uh, what do you want in your car?" I said, "Well, I'm not really sure. What are you guys making?" He says, "We're gonna put you in, in, in touch with Dick Landy, and you guys work it out, whatever you want." He says, "I don't care if you want a top fuel motor, that's what he'll build you."

• 16:50Speaker 01

  So, Dick Landy called me. He says, "What are you doing?" And I explained to him what I was doing. And I said, "I'd like to be able to drive this car across, across country if I need to." And he says, "Okay." He says, "We're gonna do an iron block, aluminum heads, and, uh, we'll reduce the, uh, size of the pulley, so, you know, because we're pushing that water all the way through the frame."

• 17:11Matt Farah?

  Right, front radiator, rear engine, yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  So, he told me exactly what he wanted to do, and he built my motor, which... I didn't end up using, I have it sitting at the shop. It's dynoed from Dick Landy, 426 Hemi with aluminum heads.

• 17:27Matt Farah?

  What? Never went in the cars?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  I've never used the motor.

• 17:29Matt Farah?

  What went in the cars?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Well, it turned out when I started to, you know, I worked at Boyd's and that's where I was originally building it. Then Boyd's went bankrupt and it got put on the back burner. So then when I started again, I saw Tom Gale and he says, and I said, "Yep, I'm getting on it." And he says, "Can we switch out that motor?" Because now they were bringing back their new Hemi.

• 17:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And I said, "You don't want me to run the 426?" He said, "Let's do the next generation, the new Hemi that, you know, is now in the..."

• 17:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's the Hemi that people are talking about now. It was a 6.1, right? Was it 6.1 or 5.1?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Originally it was a 5.7. So that green car has the very first 6.2 that they made, which was a 392 Hemi.

• 18:12Matt Farah?

  Does it work?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Oh, it works great.

• 18:14Matt Farah?

  It does?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:15Matt Farah?

  What does it use for a gearbox?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Uh, it's got a same gearbox that was in a Pantera.

• 18:21Matt Farah?

  Oh, okay. So the ZF 5-speed? Okay, cool. What's it like to drive?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 18:27Matt Farah?

  Is it?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  You know, and then, uh...

• 18:29Matt Farah?

  Like, does it drive like a, like, I mean, it's not normal, but does it drive like a normal car? Do you have to like use a lot of brain power to actually drive it?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  No, you don't need any brain power. Yeah.

• 18:38Matt Farah?

  You still have both?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:40Matt Farah?

  You do?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Well, the, the black one's not mine. I own the green one.

• 18:43Matt Farah?

  Okay, who's got the black one?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  The black one belonged to Don Voth, who has recently passed away, so the family's going to be selling it. But there was five of them done.

• 18:50Matt Farah?

  I thought, wasn't there a planned run of these things? The Foose Coops they became, right? Yeah. But what, what happened?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Originally, they were all Hemispheres.

• 18:58Matt Farah?

  Uh-huh.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  And I own the trademark Hemisphere for clothing and toys and whatnot. I also owned it for cars. And, you know, you have to renew your trademarks.

• 19:13Matt Farah?

  Uh-oh.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I accidentally let it lapse.

• 19:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And the day that it lapsed, Chrysler took it from me.

• 19:19Matt Farah?

  No!

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And they came back to me and, and that's when we were building cars.

• 19:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  And Chrysler comes back and said, "We have your name now, but we're gonna let you use it." For a, you know, for a license free, but we want to own the name.

• 19:34Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  And I said, well, I don't need to use it. They said, well, you're going to be selling Hemispheres. I said, no, I'll start selling Foose Coops and I'll put a Ford motor in it. And they said, no, no, no, we don't want you to do that. We want you to use. And I said, no. I said, you're trying to strong arm me and you've taken my name.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  So I will now build Foose Coops. Thank you.

• 19:54Matt Farah?

  That's crazy.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  And that's what I did.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 19:57Matt Farah?

  So you did end up building, you both built five, but there was a plan to run for more, right?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  There was three of them with Hemi motors and two with Ford motors.

• 20:04Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow. Which drove better?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I'm not saying.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  So I had a design book, like, because I was really into hot rods when I grew up and went to hot August nights and stuff. So I kind of knew who you were. And my parents got me a book of car design, I think in like early 2000s, or late 90s, early 2000s. And this was in it. But I remember like in this book, which had, you know, any countless number of 41 Willys and 32 Ford, like the stuff that was basically in vogue from like 1940 to the 90s. You know, the styles like they changed a bit, more flames, more louvers, but it was all like kind of the same. And then this shows up in the book and I'm like, what the fuck is that? Who made this? What is? And it was like it completely different than anything else that was in any of those pages, which was so rad.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  It's hot rod, it's muscle car and it's supercar all the time.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 20:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I, I really would like to have a go in that. Can I drive it?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's in Lincoln, Nebraska right now. It's on display at the Speedway Museum.

• 21:04Matt Farah?

  Is it?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:05Matt Farah?

  I, what if I go to Lincoln, Nebraska? I got a friend in Lincoln.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  We can do that. You're probably going to have to change the battery. It's been sitting there for.

• 21:12Matt Farah?

  I'll bring a jump box.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a fun car design.

• 21:16Matt Farah?

  That would be a nice circle if maybe, maybe for 2027, if 20 years later, after meeting you and sitting in this, I actually get to drive it. Um, it's so, is it, I mean, it must be, for those who've never seen this car, I'm sorry for spending 20 minutes on this, but I care. Does it? Is it, when you drive it, is it like heavily rear, rear bias? Or does it, because it's got a, it's got a long nose and.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's actually, it's got a hundred and twenty-four inch wheelbase, but it feels very agile and very light in the front. The steering is, you know, it's, it's, it doesn't have power steering, but there's no weight on the front wheels.

• 21:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it must be, it must be easy.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  It looks like the engine is all the way in front of the rear axle.

• 21:57Matt Farah?

  It is in front, yeah, it's mid, yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Right, so it should be pretty good.

• 22:00Matt Farah?

  I bet that glass roof and engine cover was pricey.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Well, that's what Metalcrafters does. They have their own glass.

• 22:07Matt Farah?

  They do glass?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:09Matt Farah?

  That's, see, that's a, that's a good one. That's a good one to, to have, yeah. So, okay, we, we, I could talk about this one car, but you've built, I mean, you've built hundreds, if not thousands of cars. Do you have a number? Do you know how many cars you've built?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:22Matt Farah?

  You don't, you don't even know?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Overhauling alone was about a hundred and seventy.

• 22:25Matt Farah?

  That's a lot. But like, so what do you think? Do you think you've done five hundred in your life? Think more than five hundred?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Well, as a kid, working in my dad's shop, we would send eighty to a hundred and twenty cars a month out of the, out of the body. You know, we had a repair shop, a crash shop, but we also built hot rods back there. So, I mean, I built, you know, it started at three years old, I was going to Gene Winfield's shop where my dad was the man, you know, he was shop manager.

• 22:52Matt Farah?

  Wow, you go, that goes, that's some like, that's some like deep car building.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  It was pretty cool.

• 22:57Matt Farah?

  We're going, we're going back to like the forties now, right?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  No, I'm not that old.

• 23:01Matt Farah?

  No, no, but your dad, Gene Winfield, I mean, Gene Winfield was in the forties, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  So this is back in the sixties, nineteen sixty-six, I started going to Gene's shop with my dad on the weekends and watched what they were building.

• 23:14Matt Farah?

  That must have been something.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  And then the cool thing was, you know, it was, AMT was the name of the shop. And AMT is the plastic model kits that you could buy. So they were building the full-size cars that became the model kits.

• 23:26Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  So I'd watch my dad and the crew and, and they'd build these cars and then my dad would bring a model home that I got to build.

• 23:32Matt Farah?

  That's pretty cool.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  The same thing.

• 23:33Matt Farah?

  That's cool.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And Hot Wheels was building, you know, diecast versions of the same cars that were being built.

• 23:38Matt Farah?

  So what gave you, I mean, I guess just watching your dad the whole time, but like, what gave you the, the artistic sort of eye of? Because you, you, you have a style that you developed, but you can see it in some of your earlier work. Like, where, where did you see that sort of old style of hot rod and, and custom car building and go, here's where I want to change this?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  You know, my dad could draw. And I started drawing next to him when I was three. And it was at about the age of 14 that my artwork was about equivalent to his. He never drew after that. He would just tell me, this is what I want to do, draw it. So I was drawing everything that we were building together. And then I started doing drawings for other people. Then I went halfway through Art Center. And then when I left Art Center, I went back and I was working with my dad. And I started my own studio and that's when I did the NFL helmet car. Working on my own stuff. And then Alon Clinet saw the NFL helmet model that I built.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Asked me to start doing some work for him. So I was working with my dad, working in my own studio and working at Asha Corporation. And then Asha sent me, it was Sternberg Clinet became Asha Corporation. And then they put me back through Art Center. I did the Hemisphere model, which was the Prowler for Chrysler. Boyd Cottington saw that model, asked me to start working for him. I worked for him for two and a half years. And then left Asha Corporation and went full time with Boyd.

• 25:23Matt Farah?

  When Chrysler, when you, you know, it takes your senior project and it becomes the PT Cruiser. Are you compensated? Prowler, excuse me, not Cruiser, sorry. Are you compensated?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I was given $200 by Art Center for supplies while we did that project.

• 25:39Matt Farah?

  Alright.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  To be a student who got a car made by OEM, you got a $200 pencil bonus.

• 25:46Matt Farah?

  Cool.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  But those projects and my show at Art Center, like I say, opened the doors and started a lot of relationships. Because then I've been involved with several show cars through the manufacturers that are just amazing projects.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  How common is it for a student senior project to be built into, I mean, a concept, let alone metal and sold at a dealership? Is it like a percentage if you could ballpark it?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  I've known of other students that their vehicles became show cars.

• 26:16Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  But I don't know of any other students that their, their... Inspiration became a production car.

• 26:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's gotta be

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 26:25Matt Farah?

  Very rare, if not unique.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  I would think so.

• 26:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's pretty, that's a good one. That's a good one on the CV.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  I'm proud of that one.

• 26:31Matt Farah?

  Good one on the CV.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Were you really excited when the Prowler project went forward? Were you, did the kid in you?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  I had no idea it would go forward. I'll tell you, that project was presented to us as students to design a

• 26:49Speaker 01

  they called it a

• 26:52Speaker 01

  trying to remember the term they used.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  They wanted us to design.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Man, I can't think of what they called it.

• 27:02Matt Farah?

  Retro future didn't exist yet.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  It wasn't anything like that. It was a niche market vehicle.

• 27:07Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Create a niche market vehicle.

• 27:09Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And the example they gave us was a guy that likes to work out on an exercise bike.

• 27:14Matt Farah?

  Uh huh.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Might work out on his bike, charge a battery that he could put in his car and get to and from work that day. And I was thinking at that time, well, that's something I don't believe I'll ever do.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  But that's what we had to do.

• 27:28Matt Farah?

  You're like, instead I could design the most useless car in the history of the automotive world.

• 27:36Matt Farah?

  It doesn't carry anything. It doesn't keep you warm. It doesn't even have full body work.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  I knew it's going to be a lightweight, simple vehicle, and that's what we all started to design. Now, at that time, if you were drawing muscle cars or hot rods at art center, it was very frowned upon.

• 27:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  They got pretty upset that you're focusing on not the future of automobile design, but you're focusing on the past.

• 28:03Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  So I did two separate presentations and I didn't tell my teachers or any of the other students about it.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I did a complete second presentation in my apartment and then put it up the day that Tom Gale came in for our presentation. So I had two, two lines of vehicles.

• 28:23Matt Farah?

  Whoa.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  So Tom gets to, you know, he's going through the room and interviewing all the students and he gets to my wall and he says, "Okay, I know what you're doing over here, that's our project, but what are you doing over here?"

• 28:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  And I said, "Well, this is what you asked us to do, these niche market vehicles." So I've got five of them here. And the way I look at this project, just like these drawings and every drawing in this room, we're trying to create a niche market and we're trying to create a customer.

• 28:55Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I said, "What I'm doing over here is I'm catering to customers that exist." I said, "There are thousands of people out there with their older muscle cars or hot rods, they're trying to put modern, you know, mechanicals and drivetrain under them so they can enjoy them on a daily basis." I said, "We have the advantage right now, because it's not today's designers fault, that designers chose to go away from a great form and create something completely new." You can look at a Mustang and, you know, it, the body changes, you know, every three or four years, it becomes something else.

• 29:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And, you know, Cudas or, or Challengers, you know, they, they had a really cool body and then they just went away from something or the whole vehicle went away. I said, "We have the advantage right now to go back and draw from something that was great in the past and evolve it into something new."

• 29:51Matt Farah?

  And skip, you know, skip 40 years.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:55Matt Farah?

  Basically, yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  But we can tug on the heartstrings of memories of a guy that remembers his grandfather having that or his dad having that and build something new and modern for them today. And Tom looked at me, he says, "Well, what do you want to build?" And I said, "Well, I would love to build one of these." And I pointed to the hot rods and the muscle cars. I had both in there. And I said, "But I know you're going to want me to do one of these." He says, "No, I want you to do the hot rod." So it was Tom Gale that, you know, stood up for me and said, "Yes, build it." And like I say, he became a good friend to me for many years.

• 30:29Matt Farah?

  That's so cool. Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  When Troy Trippanier and I built the Sniper, which was that 1953.

• 30:35Matt Farah?

  I remember that. Yeah. Get a picture of the Trippanier Sniper. Yeah, that was a good car.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that project, Troy says, "It'd be cool if we could put the Viper motor in it."

• 30:46Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  So I went to Tom Gale with my drawings, and I said, "Is there any way we can get a V12 for this?" And he says,

• 30:54Matt Farah?

  10.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Or, yeah, the V10 for it. And he says, "Uh, yeah." He says, "Let me get back to you." So he calls me two days later and he says, "Here's the address. Here's the phone number. I have a complete." Now, they hadn't released the coupe yet. This is in 19-

• 31:11Matt Farah?

  Oh, the GTS. This would have been 94 maybe, right?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Well, the ni- this was in 97?

• 31:17Matt Farah?

  The GTS came out in 96.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah, this was probably in 90, 95 or 96 then. He says, "I have an engineering coupe." He says, "You can have the whole car."

• 31:28Matt Farah?

  Dollar cars, yes.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  So we went and picked that up, and I used the entire drivetrain underneath it.

• 31:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah, sure.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  It was pretty cool.

• 31:35Matt Farah?

  That's still, Vipers remain a good drivetrain donor for things.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I do, I've seen-

• 31:40Speaker 01

  That was a fun car.

• 31:41Matt Farah?

  I've seen quite a few, uh, hot rods with full Viper powertrains.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:46Matt Farah?

  You can't do, you can't do the side pipes though. They sound like UPS trucks with the side pipes. You gotta do, they sound so much better with the, with the center exit rear exhaust, like they did for like two years in the 90s.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:58Matt Farah?

  The, uh, you have won the Riddler Award four times.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  I've been involved with six cars that have won.

• 32:04Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  I've built four at my shop.

• 32:07Matt Farah?

  And you're Builder of the Decade, according to the Grand National Roadster Show. Do, are you, are, do you, do these types of accolades, do you care about that kind of stuff? Or is it only about the next project and the next customer?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  What those mean to me is I did my job for my customers.

• 32:23Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm. Are all those cars customer cars?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. I've, I've never, you know, campaigned one of my own cars.

• 32:31Matt Farah?

  You haven't? Would you?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. I like building them, but...

• 32:36Matt Farah?

  When you're building for a customer, do you, uh, enjoy working under the sort of creative constraints of what a customer wants? Or, or would you rather, do you try to steer the customer to what you think will work best?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Well, my goal is to build their dream.

• 32:48Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  You know, it's not my car, it's their car. But I still want to build something that I'm very proud of.

• 32:53Matt Farah?

  Hmm.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  And I have been extremely lucky and blessed that my customers have allowed me to build the cars that I've built.

• 33:00Matt Farah?

  They give you, do they give you a lot of freedom based on your reputation for delivering quality?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, most of them do.

• 33:06Matt Farah?

  Just year, make, model, color, and then have fun kind of thing?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  You know, I've learned through the years to...

• 33:11Matt Farah?

  God, wow. God damn, is that good-looking.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 33:14Matt Farah?

  Sorry. Zach keeps pulling up your cars. It's very distracting.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I have learned to not build a first build for somebody where they've never had a car built before.

• 33:25Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 33:28Matt Farah?

  What don't they know that they should know about having a car built?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  What don't they know is that...

• 33:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like, you don't want...

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Well, number one, this is expensive.

• 33:37Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  You know, I won't give a quote to build a car.

• 33:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I ask them, "Give me the freedom to build the best car I can."

• 33:47Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  And it's a time and materials, and we're just gonna build something really, really cool. And like I say, I've been blessed to have had some customers allow me to do that.

• 33:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  But anymore, it's, it's starting to get where, "I don't want to spend more than this." Okay, well then, we're not gonna build the ultimate car, we're just gonna build something really cool.

• 34:05Matt Farah?

  Hmm.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And that's what's happened, but...

• 34:07Matt Farah?

  We're gonna build you three-quarters of your ultimate car.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  What I have discovered, working with people, that it's their first car, they talk to their friends, and they know better than we do on what they need to do.

• 34:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  And so I get phone calls, you know, we're already going down one path and then we get a phone call. I talked to my friend and he says, I need to do this, so I want to do this.

• 34:29Matt Farah?

  Right. Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  And sometimes you can't talk them out.

• 34:33Matt Farah?

  Or worse, they read the forums.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  And the other thing it does for me, it takes all the wind out of my sails to keep building something that I know is going to be really cool. And what I don't like to do is anything trendy. And what these people find when they're talking to their friends, they're trying to do what's most trendy right now.

• 34:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  I don't want to build something trendy because four or five years from now, somebody's going to look at that car and they know it was built four or five years ago. If you don't do trendy and you just do good design.

• 35:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It's a timeless car.

• 35:08Matt Farah?

  Sure. It's gotta be unavoidable on some level, wheels, things like that, that change with tastes, right? It's like.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Whenever I'm building a car, I want to build a one-off wheel for that car, which may go into production with the wheel company later. But I design a wheel for that car because I want it to be new on that car.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  And I'm looking at elements and details of the car and that's where I pull something that inspires the wheel for that car.

• 35:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Do you have a favorite, you know, you've done your traditional muscle car builds? You've done 50's stuff, you've done that sort of open front fender, hot rod, narrow nose look. I'm sure there's a better descriptor than I've just used for that stuff.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Teardrop bodies.

• 35:55Matt Farah?

  Teardrop, thank you. And then things that are just not even based on regular cars at all. Do you have a favorite style?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  My favorite is to design from scratch.

• 36:06Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. The.

• 36:09Matt Farah?

  Hemisphere, etc.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Hemisphere is from scratch. The Impression was from scratch. I did a lot of cars.

• 36:15Matt Farah?

  Which one was Impression? I'm not sure I'd remember that one.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Impression was based on a 36 Ford Roadster, but it was completely handmade.

• 36:23Matt Farah?

  Zach will find it very rapidly. Oh, yeah. Yep. That is, that is quite good.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  And I've had the freedom with car companies when we're building show cars.

• 36:36Matt Farah?

  Do you like working with the OEM as a client?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:41Matt Farah?

  You do?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, my name doesn't go on it.

• 36:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  But the people that need to know, know. Where it came from.

• 36:50Matt Farah?

  It does it and it. You know, is it a it's a satisfying thing to be able to.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  To have that freedom to take a big hunk of clay and start carving and shaping and. And make something come alive. It's it's a really cool feeling.

• 37:06Matt Farah?

  Do you work in clay?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:08Matt Farah?

  You do you like personally with your hands? Oh, amazing.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:12Matt Farah?

  Is that is that a? Is that as zen a a a? Workday as I feel like it is?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  You can change shapes and move things around really fast and. Sketch modeling is is fun to do in clay. That's where you're just. Generating ideas. You know, the ideas come from a piece of paper where you've. Sketched it, but as you're building it. You know, those final decisions of. How tight is that radius and is it this tall or is it this tall or you know, do we move the wheels? You can quickly cut something out and move a wheel and change it and look at it and. You know, I'll work in clay. I like to work in quarter scale.

• 37:49Matt Farah?

  OK, so it's like like that.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  About thirty inches long.

• 37:52Matt Farah?

  OK.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 37:53Matt Farah?

  And how long will it take you to do a model like that? To where it looks like a car, even if it's not, even if you want to change stuff, but to go from a square.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  I'll just work in the clay and maybe pull a mold off it and make a glass body. Or an epoxy body. And then cut that up and make and then use that to make a section buck.

• 38:12Matt Farah?

  Oh, right.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  You can do a clay model in. Two weeks.

• 38:16Matt Farah?

  OK. And then just mold off it for a long time.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yep. In full size, I've done the same thing.

• 38:23Matt Farah?

  So what does your like workday look like?

• 38:26Speaker 01

  It's different every day.

• 38:27Matt Farah?

  It's gotta be all over the place.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Today I drove to LA.

• 38:32Matt Farah?

  You're down in OC now, right?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah, OK, where cars get built.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Shops in Huntington Beach and I live in Orange.

• 38:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so that's where cars get built in this state. So it's like, are you, are you, are you bending metal anymore? Or are you directing a team of guys? What are we doing every day?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  I've got a team. I'm directing them and I'm working with them. I'm on the drawing table. I'm welding stuff, I'm cutting them. You know, whatever needs to be done. Lately, I've been working in foam and shaping an interior. And then I pull the foam out and fiberglass it and Bondo it and get it straight and make all the gaps. So we can wrap it in leather and.

• 39:09Matt Farah?

  When you're doing interiors, I mean, it's such an important part of the car. But it's a totally different skill set from doing an exterior, right? Or is it not? Am I, am I reading that wrong?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  You're working inside, but it's, it's, yeah, I'm not, I'm not finalizing everything in metal. Maybe sometimes we are, but the one that I'm working on right now, I'll just, I'll rough things out of wood. I'll take some Bondo, put it on the wood and put foam there and then shape the foam and then put fiberglass on the outside. If I need to haul the foam out, we're taking it out, but it's whatever needs to be done to build the shapes that need to be wrapped. That's what I'm doing.

• 39:47Matt Farah?

  I can, I can picture what? If you showed me a, a pro touring muscle car at a car show, I could probably go, that's an overhauling car. I know your, your style as applied to those overhauling cars. I saw probably every episode of that show with all the re, it was on for six years, five, six years, all the reruns.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Eighteen years.

• 40:09Matt Farah?

  Is it still eighteen years?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  We filmed for eighteen years.

• 40:12Matt Farah?

  Wow, sorry for undercounting that.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  That's alright.

• 40:15Matt Farah?

  But I've seen a lot and I, and I, I really know what your style looks like on those overhauling cars.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  And my favorite part of overhauling was, you know, the first five seasons where we did the cars in eight days or less.

• 40:30Matt Farah?

  Where you actually did it for, for, in the real, the real timeline.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  We had season three, we built twenty-nine cars in nine months.

• 40:39Matt Farah?

  That's crazy.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  We averaged finishing a car every eleven days, but we were also moving the studio. Because we'd go and build, build a car at one shop, finish a car, move the studio. Then we started doing two in one shop or three in one shop. But what we couldn't have, because we were stealing the cars.

• 40:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Working with their, you know, either a wife or a husband or a brother or sister. We would steal the car, then take it to our shop. Build the car. What we couldn't have is somebody knowing where overhaulin' was.

• 41:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Take a car and they go, "I bet overhaulin's got it." That's why later, you know, we started telling the people up front.

• 41:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  You know, "You're on overhaulin', we're gonna build your car."

• 41:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was probably more fun when you were stealing the cars.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  That was my favorite part.

• 41:26Matt Farah?

  But yeah, you have to hide once. They're like, "Oh, no, this isn't stolen. It's overhaulin'."

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Matt Farah?

  Shit. Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a blast, though. And that, you know, I gotta thank Bud Brettsman, the producer. And we did, if you remember, Rides before that.

• 41:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  The pilot episode, I built that 2002 Thunderbird, the Speedbird. And I built that car in just under seven weeks. I lost 27 pounds building that car. I was working around the clock, crazy. And when we got done, Bud came to me, you know, he filmed the show, put it together, and sent the show to Discovery Channel. They loved it and wanted it to be a series, so Bud comes back to me and says, "What are we doing next?" I said, "I'm not."

• 42:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  You're gonna sleep in it.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  I killed myself doing it. I said, "But I have an idea for a show." Now, Monster Garage had just come out.

• 42:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Where they were building something in a week.

• 42:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  And I said, "Rather than building something that performs a task, let's take somebody who owns a car, but they don't have the money or the means to build what they want, let's build their dream and give it back to them at the end of the week."

• 42:34Matt Farah?

  It's a fantastic idea. It's all feel-good.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Bud had the idea of, "Let's steal the car and prank the owner." He wrote up a treatment, gave it to Discovery. They said, "Yeah, here's an order for seven episodes right away."

• 42:46Matt Farah?

  It was a good show.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  It was a lot of fun.

• 42:48Matt Farah?

  Chris Jacobs is a great guy. I see him a lot in all the stuff.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Chris brought the professionalism to the crew. You know, he is such a great presenter.

• 42:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah, he is.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I didn't want to do it without him. And I thought-

• 43:01Matt Farah?

  He's a good lead for that type of thing.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  He and I are the only two that did every single episode of Overhaulin'.

• 43:07Matt Farah?

  It, where I sort of was meandering to, and I didn't get there, because we were talking about overhaulin', was what do, most of those overhaulin' builds are, were done in a time period where this was-

• 43:21Matt Farah?

  You personally defined the style of what a car built in that era looks like. And you say you're not trendy, but I think you're a trendsetter, which is a different thing.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:32Matt Farah?

  So what, the stuff that you're working on now, to be honest, I haven't seen something you've built or sought it out intentionally in the last couple of years. What are you working on now that you're really passionate about?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Uh, right now, we've got a 62 Corvette in the shop.

• 43:45Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  56 Chevy Postcar, 55 DeSoto, uh, 33 Ford four-door sedan, a 57 Lincoln Continental.

• 43:56Matt Farah?

  Oh, those are, those are alright.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I've got a stretch 32 Ford Roadster that we're working on. But I just got a project in the shop that I have wanted to do for probably 35 years.

• 44:09Matt Farah?

  Which is?

• 44:09Speaker 01

  And this is my dream job that I get to build now. Because back in the late twenties, early thirties, if you bought a Duesenberg, you bought a chassis.

• 44:19Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  And then you took that to a coach builder. They would get a designer involved and they built, designed and built your body that went on the Duesenberg chassis.

• 44:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah, Mulliner Park Ward, Fingoni Filacci, any of these crazy European places, or?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  So Rob and Jeannie Hilardis bought a Duesenberg that was being restored in, I believe it was the late sixties, early seventies. The chassis was done and they were waiting for the body to get out of the paint shop. Well, that paint shop burned.

• 44:50Matt Farah?

  Uh-oh.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Or it was in a shed, a storage shed or something. But the original body was destroyed. So it was a Rolston body, but it was gone.

• 45:01Matt Farah?

  There's photos, right?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah, okay.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  But the owners chose a different body and they built a reproduction body and finished the car that way.

• 45:12Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  So we bought that car, or I should say, you know, Rob and Jeannie bought that car.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  We have since pulled that body off and I'm working on the drawings of what we're going to build now, but I'm trying to put myself back in the early 30s, maybe mid 30s. If I were a designer then and I had this chassis to work with, I want to keep the grill and basically from the center of the front wheels forward, the fenders will still look like that Duesenberg fender, because you could buy it with a grill, a hood side, fenders, running boards, and all the lights.

• 45:49Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  And then you basically designed from the firewall to the back.

• 45:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Your body and did the interior. So I'm going to change the fenders and the body line. They had a skirt that covered, you know, most Dueserbergs had a skirt that covered the frame.

• 46:06Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  I want to bring the body down, the bottom of that rocker, give it a little shape and make it a much more voluptuous looking vehicle.

• 46:14Matt Farah?

  Body by Foose.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Yes, so.

• 46:17Matt Farah?

  So is it an S? Is it an S or an SJ?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  This is a J model.

• 46:21Matt Farah?

  Is a J?

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:23Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  S was supercharged.

• 46:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27Matt Farah?

  We like those.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  This is not a supercharged model, but.

• 46:29Matt Farah?

  Whatever. It's a Duesenberg.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  We could add it.

• 46:32Matt Farah?

  You get to buy, you could add it. Could you get a Duesenberg supercharged?

• 46:34Speaker 01

  I'll bet Randy Ema probably has one.

• 46:35Matt Farah?

  There must be one somewhere.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Randy Ema is.

• 46:37Matt Farah?

  It probably costs $300,000.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  It's interesting. I built a 67 Chevy pickup and I sold it to a friend of mine in Texas. And part of the deal is he had a J model engine, so I have a J model engine that I was going to put in another project of my own. Just happens to be J573 is my motor.

• 47:00Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  And the car that Robin Genie bought is J575.

• 47:06Matt Farah?

  No way.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  So there was one car in between the two. So I have two J model engines sitting in my shop right now.

• 47:11Matt Farah?

  What can you do with a Duesenberg engine that's not put it in a Duesenberg?

• 47:14Speaker 01

  I was going to build a stretched, I am building it now. It's a stretched 32 Ford Roadster. The doors are six inches longer and the hood is 22 inches longer. And I started building it and I put that motor in it and it is so crammed in there. I have decided not to use it, so.

• 47:34Matt Farah?

  Stretch a few more inches, baby.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Anybody out there that's interested in J model Duesenberg motor, I have one.

• 47:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like it, I mean, what does it make like 200 horsepower probably?

• 47:45Speaker 01

  I don't even know what the horsepower was. I just thought it'd be cool to put it in there.

• 47:49Matt Farah?

  It is cool for sure.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  So I may put a model A Duesenberg motor in it, which is about eight inches shorter.

• 47:55Matt Farah?

  What do you think is your least, your weirdest engine swap?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Weirdest, weirdest engine swap?

• 48:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  That's an interesting question. I don't know.

• 48:07Matt Farah?

  You ever put like a turbine in something or like anything like?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  No, but my-

• 48:11Matt Farah?

  Airplane engine, helicopter motor, anything like that?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  My dad painted Andy Granatelli's turbine powered Indy cars.

• 48:18Matt Farah?

  Oh, really?

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Back in the 60s.

• 48:19Matt Farah?

  Didn't they, where they race a half a race and get banned or something? Did they actually race any completed races?

• 48:24Speaker 01

  There was some like little 25 cent piece that ended, but he was winning the race.

• 48:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah, he was riding a rocket, yeah.

• 48:32Matt Farah?

  That happens, yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Pretty cool.

• 48:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah, would you-

• 48:34Speaker 01

  I have pictures of my dad painting those bodies.

• 48:37Matt Farah?

  Would you like to put some crazy engine into something and no one's giving you the opportunity yet? I mean, a Duesenberg motor in a 32 Ford is pretty good. Anything weirder than that?

• 48:47Speaker 01

  No, I haven't done anything weirder than that. I've put a Lincoln Zephyr V12 in my P32 is what I call that car. And that was, you know, when the rat rods started becoming really, really popular. I had this idea, let's put a Lincoln Zephyr V12 in a 32, but the inspiration for the whole car is what if a World War II fighter pilot who used to fly a P40 Warbird? You know, now he's out of the war and maybe it was late 40s. He decided to build his own hot rod and themed it after his P40 Warbird. So I put a Lincoln Zephyr Flathead in it, but dressed it to look like a Rolls Royce Merlin motor that was in the P40.

• 49:31Matt Farah?

  That's pretty cool.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  So that was the whole theme behind the car.

• 49:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  But I wanted to build something safe.

• 49:36Matt Farah?

  I'm into that.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  That's what I, that's what I did.

• 49:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, now you just need to do the actual Rolls Royce Merlin motor.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be cool.

• 49:43Matt Farah?

  Right? Oh, there it is. Look at that. Even in, even in- Spooling, oh yes. See that?

• 49:50Speaker 01

  And now it's got the tiger's mouth.

• 49:52Matt Farah?

  I think that, is that what you would call a rat rod? I wouldn't call that a rat rod.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  It was my version. It was my version of a rat rod.

• 49:59Matt Farah?

  This is as dirty as you'll allow yourself to have a car.

• 50:04Matt Farah?

  Holy shit, look how nice that engine is.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Beautiful engine.

• 50:07Matt Farah?

  Wow.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And those exhaust tips are just like what you would see on the P40.

• 50:13Matt Farah?

  Damn, is that still around?

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's actually at the Speedway Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. I've got six of my cars back there.

• 50:21Matt Farah?

  Oh wow, we should go just-

• 50:22Speaker 02

  You can film six cars.

• 50:23Matt Farah?

  Drive the whole collection. Yeah, see, this is funny, your version of a rat rod. Yeah, it's not dirty.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  No, it's like an airplane.

• 50:32Matt Farah?

  It's not patinaed, but is it bare aluminum or is it just painted silver?

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Both. No, it's raw metal and raw aluminum.

• 50:39Matt Farah?

  Okay. It looks cool as hell. I mean, that's a very, very pretty car. And I get the World War II warplane vibes.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Now, those seats actually came out of-

• 50:49Matt Farah?

  Whoa, what is that gauge cluster though? Can we talk about that?

• 50:51Speaker 01

  That's a Zephyr, because I ran the Zephyr motor. So I wanted to put the Zephyr dash in. And that's also a Lincoln Zephyr-

• 50:57Matt Farah?

  With the steering wheel, right?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  The steering wheel, which is the red acrylic.

• 51:00Matt Farah?

  Damn, that is cool as hell.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  You can see that Lincoln Zephyr side shift transmission.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  I made the arm wrap around it and it's got the same, that transparent red-

• 51:10Matt Farah?

  That might be a new contender for best shifter ever. How do you operate that device?

• 51:14Speaker 02

  For people listening, it's like a bicycle handle going around the sandbag.

• 51:17Matt Farah?

  It's literally an H pattern?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  It just reaches that-

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Reverse is up, first is down low and then second and third.

• 51:23Matt Farah?

  Wow, it's giving the dash a reach around.

• 51:27Matt Farah?

  So crazy.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  It actually is, yeah.

• 51:30Matt Farah?

  The shifter, like, there's like a center vertical piece. And the shifter wraps around the back of it and comes around and says hello. Like a snake checking you out from around a tree.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  But you still got that first gear where you have your hand right on your girlfriend's knee in the seat.

• 51:51Matt Farah?

  That's awesome. That's very cool. I'm into that. Yeah, super cool. Um, so you have a, oh god, look at that nose. There's every angle. There's too many angles. So many louvers. Much, much more plain. And, uh, and the wire wheels really work on that too.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  If you look at the back wheels, I took two of those. Those are thirty-two Ford wheels, eighteen inch. But in the rear, I split two of them, cut the spokes out of one.

• 52:16Matt Farah?

  Oh.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  And just smoothed the, the hoop out. Then I cut the hoop at the backside where it drops off. The other one I cut in front of the spokes and then I welded them together. So I got a two-inch wider rear.

• 52:27Matt Farah?

  Oh, cool.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  And so.

• 52:29Matt Farah?

  Every, it's just, the, the just make it. It's like, I don't even, it's so far beyond my comprehension. When you're doing a sixty-two vet and you're working in fiberglass, how does that change your approach?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Well, you don't have to hammer it.

• 52:46Matt Farah?

  True.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  You grind it, and then if you want to build a shape, you can put foam behind it, shape something, and then glass, glass it in, glasses right back into the body, and then tear the foam out. So it's no different.

• 52:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I've seen quite, we've had two, two, uh, C1 vets come through here recently. It seems like they're having maybe a little bit of a resurgence. Cool cars.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  That one we, uh.

• 53:12Matt Farah?

  This one is a little of everything, it seems.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  It's got a lot of little subtle modifications. Rear fenders are two inches wider and an inch taller. Uh, we molded the original headlight ring and then molded that into the body. And, uh, originally on the sixty-two, because it had the new rear end, it has those fitted bumpers that are wraparound.

• 53:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  But the front bumper was into the body. So I cut the front bumper all out and made it look like it was a wraparound bumper as well.

• 53:44Matt Farah?

  Oh, cool. Yeah, these, these are like, the front half is fifties and the back half is sixties.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Right, and then it's interesting, the sixty-one and two has that real prominent peak on top of the fender in the rear.

• 53:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Well, I got rid of that peak and softened it because the front fenders are soft.

• 54:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  To me, it always looked like. One designer did the front and another designer did the back, which is just those two years between

• 54:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You know, the

• 54:09Matt Farah?

  The rounded bustle bum.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  And the 63 is when all the design, you know, the whole car was one design.

• 54:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Which is a beautiful car.

• 54:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  But I didn't like those peaks on the rear fender, so I got rid of those and like I say,

• 54:21Matt Farah?

  That front bumper that you, that I saw being fitted on there looked really particularly nice. This, this is great stuff. How long to, uh, how long, I mean, you know, obviously every project is, is different and every car you're starting with is different, but is it usually like a year to do a car or 18 months?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  It depends on, uh, the owner and their budget. How much you want to put towards it every month?

• 54:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  And, you know, do you want to keep putting money in or, or, you know, sometimes I get projects like this Corvette, the owner went through a divorce and money got tight, so it sat for a while. Now we're back on it.

• 55:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I know how it is. I have a car being restored right now and their ability to fix it is right in line with my ability to pay for it. So I, I, I can relate to those customers. Uh, do we have some things from the Patreon? Let's get those ready, but before we do, you want to plug Hemmings and your, your Hemmings gig?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Hemmings is pretty cool. I'm proud to be, uh, associated with them now, but I grew up with Hemmings in my dad's shop. And whenever we, you know, we like to go camping, but my dad always took Hemmings and we'd look for stuff in there. We'd find parts or just, uh, you know, we'd get customers that came to us and the same thing now. I'll get a customer that comes to me and he says, you know, I want to build a 69 Z28 Camaro. Okay. Grab Hemmings, find the car that's going to be the donor car for the project.

• 55:49Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Whatever it is you're looking for, Hemmings, you know, they, they've been around for 70 years and there are over 30,000 cars available at any one time. So you can find what you want. It's one stop.

• 56:01Matt Farah?

  What are you doing with them?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  What am I doing with them?

• 56:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Well, I'm actually-

• 56:05Matt Farah?

  I've been telling people to go there for donor cars.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Or your dream car.

• 56:08Matt Farah?

  Or your dream car.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  You don't have to cut it up and change it.

• 56:11Matt Farah?

  No, we've sold cars on Hemmings here for our clients.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  It might be exactly what you want and you can find it there. But, uh, yeah, I'm just, I'm doing some, uh, social media work with them. And we're going to be doing a section in Hemmings called, uh, Chip's Picks. And I'm working with my son and we're just, we're scrolling through their, uh, their website. And we're finding cars and talking about it and then we might talk about maybe five or six cars. And then I'll pick one of them and I'll say, if I had that car, this is what I'll do.

• 56:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah, cool.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  And I do a, a five-minute sketch, just loose, might, might have some color in it, might not, but, uh, I'm having fun with them.

• 56:47Matt Farah?

  Cool. What, uh, is your son in the business with you?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  My son graduated from Chapman University in film.

• 56:54Matt Farah?

  Nice.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  He loves film and he loves music.

• 56:57Matt Farah?

  Ah.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  But because he's in film, he's working with us and he's doing our social media.

• 57:02Matt Farah?

  Perfect. That is a good way to do it.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Along with Bud Brettsman, who is the producer of Rides and Overall.

• 57:07Matt Farah?

  Oh, nice.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  So he comes down and brings a film crew and Brock works with them as well.

• 57:12Matt Farah?

  Perfect. Uh, let's get to some of our fans' questions. Of course, if you want to ask questions for the show, if you want to watch the live stream, if you want to get the show before anybody else, if you want to get it without advertising, patreon.com slash the smoke and tire podcast is where you do it. And, uh, in line for best username, Angle of the Dangle. Question for Chip, do you prefer doing cars, uh, that are more commonly done or ones that are, or oddball cars?

• 57:41Speaker 01

  I like both.

• 57:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, anything with four wheels, but if it's a car that's commonly done, then I want to look at it and I want to try to do something different that I haven't seen anybody do to make it stand out from everybody else.

• 57:54Matt Farah?

  When you're at your level where you can make or know somebody who makes any, pretty much anything, does doing it like, if it's normal people who are buying an, an old car? The parts availability could be a consideration, but because you're effectively making so much, does it matter if there's a, if you can quote, "get parts" for the car you're doing, or not really?

• 58:20Speaker 01

  You can pretty much find whatever you want, but we can also build whatever we want.

• 58:25Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  You know, and I would say that being a designer is also somewhat of a curse. Because as a designer and somebody that I have an imagination, I can see how to change things.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  I can see a brand-new car that's absolutely perfect, but something about it bothers me. That's where I say it's a curse, because every time I look at it, I just look at that one thing that I want to fix.

• 58:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  And that's what my customers allow me to do, is fix those things that bother me. And once I point it out to them.

• 58:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  You know, they'll bring a car, "What do you think of this? It'd be fun to do, and what I'd love to do is this, this, and this. I'd like to change that and make this, this, and..." You explain it to them, and then they see it right away.

• 59:10Matt Farah?

  We were just at Rick Hendrick's collection.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 59:13Matt Farah?

  In North Carolina.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Did you go upstairs?

• 59:16Matt Farah?

  The guitar, the guitar room.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  The glass floor?

• 59:18Matt Farah?

  The guitar room was insane. Yeah, it was insane. Uh, but he had a, I think it was a 70 or 71 Camaro.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:26Matt Farah?

  Second-gen Camaro, that he had basically had somebody, I don't know if, I don't, it might have been you, but I don't, somebody, okay. Basically restyle it as if it was a 62 Ferrari Luso.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 59:39Matt Farah?

  Like Ferrari louvers and Ferrari-style bumpers. And it was amazing how much it looked like a, it was still a Camaro, but just with a few of those little details. It was amazing.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  I'm kind of doing almost the same thing, but with a 69 Mustang right now.

• 59:53Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:54Matt Farah?

  And, and what would the details be from?

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Kind of like a 275 GTB.

• 59:59Matt Farah?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  But it's still Mustang.

• 1:00:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  But like the louvers behind the windows.

• 1:00:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  I want that Ferrari feel.

• 1:00:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And then, and then the rear, you know, the taillight panel.

• 1:00:09Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Well, I've got a giant winter's quick change in the back of this thing.

• 1:00:13Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  And it's gonna have a really cool MagnaFlow exhaust system. And I want to see that. So the way I'm gonna do that is I'll build a real shallow trunk that'll go forward and tie into the floor. But the taillight panel will be built out of a perforated material like a supercar that you see today.

• 1:00:30Matt Farah?

  Like McLaren's doing with that metal, yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  And you'll, you'll be able to look through that. The taillights will be floating in that, there'll still be a bumper floating in front of it. And then I'll have some, you know.

• 1:00:40Matt Farah?

  That's pretty kick ass.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Something, kind of an aero styled pan underneath the bumper.

• 1:00:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like a diffuser.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yes, but, but you'll look through that mesh material and you're gonna be able to see the exhaust, the springs, you know, the coilovers.

• 1:00:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  And that quick change rear end hanging out back there.

• 1:00:58Matt Farah?

  That's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. McLaren is doing that, right?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  They didn't do that in the old Ferraris, but some of the new ones have that same type of feel.

• 1:01:05Matt Farah?

  Uh, Tyler Barnett says, uh, who are the young designers today that you're watching or feel excited about? Or do you pay attention?

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, it's interesting. I, I pay attention to their cars, not necessarily them.

• 1:01:20Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Because this industry is all about inspiring people. And so I never know where I'm gonna be inspired or what's gonna inspire me. But I go to the shows and I look at the cars or I look at the magazines. I think one of the best magazines out there right now is Wheel Hub.

• 1:01:36Matt Farah?

  I don't even know that magazine.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a phenom- and they also have Truck Hub.

• 1:01:40Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  And I think, uh, but Wheel Hub is probably one of the best magazines. And, uh, you'll see some of the really cool stuff that's being built right now.

• 1:01:50Matt Farah?

  Have to check that out. Okay, cool.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Comes out of Texas.

• 1:01:53Matt Farah?

  All right. Uh, also Elon's ketamine dealer says, Chip, which of the big three do you think had the best design department during the 60s and 70s?

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  60s and 70s? Uh, you know, I like a lot of the different cars, but a lot of those designers went from one studio to another.

• 1:02:15Matt Farah?

  Okay, so do you have a designer?

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Um, you know, Peter Brock was pretty awesome, Harry Bradley, um...

• 1:02:26Matt Farah?

  You a Harley Earl man?

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Harley Earl, yeah, he was earlier. And, um.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Oh, Larry Shinoda.

• 1:02:35Matt Farah?

  Shinoda, Corvettes.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was phenomenal.

• 1:02:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  But, uh, you know, if I, I don't really say that I'm one or the other. But a lot of people ask me, are you a Ford Chrysler or a Chevy guy? Well, yeah, I'm all three.

• 1:02:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  You know, in life, I've chosen one woman to spend the rest of my life with.

• 1:02:54Matt Farah?

  You don't have to do that with cars.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get my hands on every car I can.

• 1:02:58Matt Farah?

  Having torn apart and put back together every car possible, uh, which car is built? Either by far the best or by far the worst of that period?

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Usually, well, if we go into the 30s and the 40s, the Fords are pretty much the top.

• 1:03:13Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  You know, construction. 50s, I would still say, um.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  I like the Fords, but also the Chevys were really getting strong then.

• 1:03:25Matt Farah?

  Is the Continental really the jam in the 50s?

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  In the 60s, I would give it to GM.

• 1:03:29Matt Farah?

  Okay. Continental's really, really, really the best car in the world, 1957?

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  That 57 Continental that we're doing right now is pretty impressive.

• 1:03:38Matt Farah?

  We just saw one at a, at a concourse and I was like, oh, man.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  I'm cutting this one up.

• 1:03:43Matt Farah?

  Are you?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I cut the top off, so it's gonna be a full-time roadster.

• 1:03:46Matt Farah?

  Oh, really?

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  But I'm leaving the stock windshield and the side glass, so eventually maybe one day.

• 1:03:51Matt Farah?

  These were never sold, these were all coupes, right? These were never sold as convertibles, right?

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Ford built one convertible.

• 1:03:57Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Matt Farah?

  Was it cool looking?

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Matt Farah?

  Can you look up Continental Series?

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  56, 57.

• 1:04:04Matt Farah?

  Series one or series two?

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  I think that's series one.

• 1:04:07Matt Farah?

  Continental conver, I think it's series one, Continental series one convertible.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  They lost money on every one of those.

• 1:04:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's, I love a car where they lose money. Those are my favorite kind of cars. That's how you know you're getting a good car.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  You must like my cars.

• 1:04:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  I lose money building every one of them.

• 1:04:21Matt Farah?

  That's how you know it's a good car. If you go, GM lost $55,000 a car doing this.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  See the blue one in lower left?

• 1:04:28Matt Farah?

  Yes, holy shit, look at that.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  So I'm building something that looks.

• 1:04:33Matt Farah?

  Well, that works exactly like you.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Much like that, but I'm putting a Thunderbird wraparound rear seat in it, you know, sixty-four.

• 1:04:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  And of course, we're doing one-off wheels and dropping it down and I, you know, the headlights to me, when you see that line coming out in that front fender,

• 1:04:49Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  They just look like they're dead flat and the hood has that beautiful lead off.

• 1:04:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  That goes into that radius. So I've dropped the headlights three-quarters of an inch, or dropped them down a half inch, pulled them back three-quarters of an inch and put that little radius in the top of the fender.

• 1:05:04Matt Farah?

  Oh, just to have a mirror that center line a little bit better.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. So dropped those down and then you see the line in the front fender, the line that goes above the front wheel well.

• 1:05:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  And it comes forward of the wheel lip.

• 1:05:18Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  It's kind of in an odd position, so I've pulled that line back, so it's almost parallel to the wheel.

• 1:05:25Matt Farah?

  Tighter on the wheel well?

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  And then I've pulled the bumpers back and narrowed them up.

• 1:05:30Matt Farah?

  I bet you wouldn't notice any of this unless you parked two of them next to each other.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05:35Matt Farah?

  Either. That's crazy.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  You know, when I build a car, I don't want everybody to know exactly what I did to it.

• 1:05:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  I want people to walk up to my cars and say, "I don't remember this car looking this nice."

• 1:05:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  And then they have to discover the differences.

• 1:05:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Like, you almost don't see it, but that rear deck lid has that spare tire cover on it.

• 1:05:55Matt Farah?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  It's actually really tall.

• 1:05:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  And on a convertible, when you get rid of the top, it looks bigger than it is. So I've cut that down almost three inches.

• 1:06:05Matt Farah?

  There's one that looks like it was coach-built, yeah, and it's really, really tall.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can see the maroon one, how tall it is there.

• 1:06:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah. You don't even really, I mean, you're not even really going to put a spare tire in it anyway. Who cares what how tall it is?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it had the spare tire down below in the floor and it stuck up a little bit.

• 1:06:20Matt Farah?

  I'd like to see you do a short wheelbase version of this that seats two.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Matt Farah?

  Remember what was, oh, what was his name, Murray? Who did the, who did the shortened Chrysler 300 and made it a roadster?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:33Matt Farah?

  That thing was kick ass.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:35Matt Farah?

  I think you should shorten all four-seat convertibles into roadsters.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:06:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that looks awesome. Yeah, I, that, that is gonna be superb. I think you can get a great one of these for like 55,000 bucks.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  That car sold two years ago up in Monterey. And we hadn't started on this car yet, and I tried to talk the owner into buying this one. I said, this is the one you should buy and let me do it.

• 1:06:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  And he said, what do you think it's gonna sell for? I said, probably around 120.

• 1:07:06Matt Farah?

  Uh-huh. And how low were you?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Uh, it sold right around 120.

• 1:07:10Matt Farah?

  Oh, it did?

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  But he says, no, no, no, well, just, cause it, here's.

• 1:07:14Matt Farah?

  That's not what this says. This says 296,500 dollars.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  That may have been, uh, since then.

• 1:07:20Matt Farah?

  This was 2022 Monterey.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't think it was that much.

• 1:07:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Big number.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. He didn't wanna buy it, but I thought that would be the one to buy, and it needed work.

• 1:07:33Matt Farah?

  I'm sure.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Matt Farah?

  Concept car, 50-year-old, 70-year-old concept car, of course it needed work. Um, okay, uh, Cat Furra says, what automaker has the most soulful design language across its current lineup? Does current automotive design bother you? Because they have to do things like pedestrian safety and impact zones and things like that that make cars not as pretty?

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Well, it's no longer the designer that's, uh, making the final decisions. You know, there's a lot of engineers involved and, and government is also saying, you have to have this, this, this. So, and that all started to change in the late 60s.

• 1:08:16Matt Farah?

  Unsafe at any speed.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Uh, but I absolutely love the cars that were, you know, designed by the design team. And what I like doing is, I call them the hard part cars, where there were chrome bumpers and pieces that you can actually restore and put back together. You know, then we got into plastics and injection molding and all this stuff. And so today, you know, a car that's got a big rubber fascia, you know, when that fascia is, you know, the UV has, has taken advantage of it and, and destroyed it. Now you either have to build something new, but the old cars that you could re-chrome a bumper and hammer out a dent and repaint it, those are the cars that I love doing because those are also the cars that were designed by a design team.

• 1:09:04Matt Farah?

  Kind of ironic, given what you said about the vibe at Arts Center at the time when you were there, that, oh, there's no, there's no future in doing these hot rods and these classic stuff, and we need to be looking to the future and designing that kind of stuff. Meanwhile, there's clearly such an obvious demand also for people that are doing the kind of thing you're doing, um, because new cars can't be customized in that way at all.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  They can be, you know, I, I've done some, like when I did the 2002.

• 1:09:37Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Uh, Thunderbird. What we did is we pulled that front fascia off and we epoxied the backside of the fascia and made it into a hard part.

• 1:09:46Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Then we started cutting it up and moving things and then clay modeled over the top of that and then pulled new molds and made epoxy parts, you know, with epoxy resins. And those are the pieces that I put on it. But that can be done.

• 1:10:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  It's not all, not everything has to be done in metal, but, you know, it's all styling.

• 1:10:07Matt Farah?

  Is it not as rewarding to do it that way?

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  It's still rewarding.

• 1:10:11Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  It's still, to me, every one of them, it's when you finish a project and you step back and it's that feeling of accomplishment that the whole team gets to step back and look at what they just accomplished. You know, that's why I do this.

• 1:10:25Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  For that.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  And that split second of when the owner sees his car for the first time, I want to see his reaction. So when he sees the car, I'm looking at him.

• 1:10:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Or her. And it's funny, when we did overhauling, and we did the car and Bud Bretzman, the producer, he says, "Okay, we're gonna bring the owner in. I'm gonna have you in this room, and then we're gonna come get you and bring you out." I said, "No, I'm not going in that room. I'm gonna stand behind the cameraman, and when he's zoomed in on his face, I'm gonna be looking at the camera because I want to see his eyes and his reaction when he sees that car for the first time."

• 1:11:06Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  That's what it was all about for me.

• 1:11:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I think that, that, that sort of big reveal moment, not that it was the only show doing that at the time, but like, after that, there were so many things where it's like, "Well, we need a big reveal. We need a big reveal. There's gotta be a reason for the audience to stick around for the... If it wasn't the big reveal, it's, "We gotta find out if they made money or lose money, right? We need to find out. Did they do the flip? Did they get the bill done in time for the customer? He's coming on Thursday."

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Matt Farah?

  Meanwhile, I just did that about my car. "You had to get it done for air-water on Saturday." And I was, I literally was that guy. Um, Bad Gardener says, "When I think of Foose Design, I think of smooth, rounder edges accentuating American muscle. When you look at modern cars, are you more drawn to European cars than American cars because of more organic shapes compared, like, such as McLarens and Bentleys compared to Corvettes and Cadillacs?" Is this something you've given thought to at all?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  It's interesting, like, you just said Corvette, and I'm thinking, Corvette? There's two cars in the history of car design that were evolutions. One's the Corvette, and the prime example, the most prime example, is the 911.

• 1:12:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Where it has just evolved and gotten better and better and better.

• 1:12:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  And I think Corvette, when they went to the C8, it took a pretty big jump. It's almost not an evolution anymore. It it became its own animal again. And, you know, when I think of today's cars, the Corvette is a pretty phenomenal car for the money.

• 1:12:55Matt Farah?

  Always has been.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  But, yeah, exactly. But styling wise, you know, to me, it's trying to mimic something European.

• 1:13:05Matt Farah?

  I think it is, but I think that part of GM's list of requirements prevent it from getting there.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Matt Farah?

  Particularly the trunk requirement, which I don't hate that that it has a big trunk. I think it's nice that it has a big trunk, honestly. I don't think customers would be happy with a Corvette that had a tiny trunk. So I get it.

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  I would. I would. I'll take a smaller trunk.

• 1:13:28Matt Farah?

  Well, yeah, I mean, but they they sort of fixed it with the ZO6 a bit. They went with the center exhaust and it does improve it with the center exhaust. It's less kind of like dumpy in the sides.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  I did some stuff with Hagerty. And it was draw a car with Chip Foose. And they would just pick a car and give it to me and say, what would you do with this? And I was supposed to do a design critique. So they gave me the C8 Corvette. And I had to do something. And because it was such a major leap in design, I went back to the C7 and I designed a C8 with the styling cues of a C7.

• 1:14:03Matt Farah?

  Oh, OK. Did it work?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  You can look at it if you want. Just put.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  Is it a video or is there a final sketch?

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Just put Chip Foose C8 Hagerty.

• 1:14:14Matt Farah?

  I actually always thought, I I kind of thought if you took a C8 and took the greenhouse and just moved the greenhouse to the rear where it would have been in a C7, you have kind of the same.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  I did a little bit of that in this.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  Oh, here we go.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, right there on the 23.

• 1:14:36Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah. Fortunately, they've left it as a center car. That does look pretty cool, actually. You know what this reminds me of, especially the back half? Reminds me of some of those Pontiac concept cars from like 93, 94, like the Banshee. Remember the Banshee? And all those GM cars that ended up in demolition, man?

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  The final sketch.

• 1:14:57Matt Farah?

  We probably can't show the video.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:01Matt Farah?

  Because we will get copyrighted, but we will jump to the.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  There you go. There's the top one. See, I don't like.

• 1:15:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah, see if you can pause on that frame, Zach. Yeah, there you go.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  See how the top?

• 1:15:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  It's pulled way forward. I laid that way back and then the

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  that vent in the rear quarter?

• 1:15:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Is reminiscent of the C7.

• 1:15:25Matt Farah?

  You made the whole rear three-quarter of the car like a lot more aggressive, I think. And actually, you made the front much pointier, too. I don't think the pedestrian crash standards are gonna hold up. I think that one may take out some shins, but it does look cool. You know what? You are good at driving shiny stuff. Drawing shiny shit, man. You can really make it shine.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  The window in that thing looks so short to me. I was just trying to stretch that out.

• 1:15:52Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Lighten that top a little bit.

• 1:15:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Oh, they can't afford to have two pieces of glass on the side, though. They're gonna have to make this work.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  So I had to do something.

• 1:16:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Some people hated it, other people loved it.

• 1:16:03Matt Farah?

  No, that's got a, um, that reminds me of something I might see from like touring or, um, not Zagato, but one of the, one of the Italian design, like maybe a Castriota could have done something like that. Yeah, it's neat.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:16:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah, alright, that's cool. Someone else just had, oh, someone else just asked, I wanna see, go back. Uh, Jake Shores, great question. Any cars you did on overhaul and that the owner wasn't happy? And you had to change things after the show?

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  No, we were extremely lucky.

• 1:16:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah?

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  That people loved what we did. And there was only one episode that I, I did what I wanted to do to the vehicle without talking to the family.

• 1:16:46Matt Farah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  And I wasn't sure what the reaction was going to be, but we did an 84 El Camino.

• 1:16:53Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  And the owner's daughter came in and she says, "I just want it blue." It was brown.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  What are we gonna change? You know, any other? I just want it blue. That was the only input she gave me. And I was sitting at my drawing table. I did the drawing with her and she was happy with the drawing. I just made it a blue El Camino, changed the wheels on it, and she left. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, this is gonna be the most boring episode of Overall and ever.

• 1:17:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  And I looked at the El Camino and I was looking dead on at the front end. And I was looking at the headlights and the grille, and I thought, that's about the same proportion as a 67, 68 Camaro.

• 1:17:38Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  So I went and got a tape measure, and I measured that, and I went and measured a Camaro, and they were, that's it there.

• 1:17:46Matt Farah?

  God damn, does that look good.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  I put that whole Camaro for an end on it.

• 1:17:49Matt Farah?

  That looks awesome. It looks so nice.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  And then I did the same thing with the, with the tailgate. I put the Camaro taillight there.

• 1:17:55Matt Farah?

  I seen one of these with a GTO front end on it. It looked pretty cool too. Yeah, this looks great.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  I also put the 67 Camaro dash in it.

• 1:18:03Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  And the bucket seats.

• 1:18:04Matt Farah?

  The seats look good.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  But, we did all of that metalwork in three days.

• 1:18:09Matt Farah?

  Wow.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  And still, and still finished that car.

• 1:18:12Matt Farah?

  Did they notice?

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 1:18:13Matt Farah?

  Okay, alright, good.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  But what I did, because of what I was doing, you know, she said her father inherited this car from his father.

• 1:18:22Matt Farah?

  Wow.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  So I took the original front end and didn't restore it. But there, there you see the taillights.

• 1:18:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  I took the original front end off that El Camino and put it back to exactly the way it was and made a wall hanging out of it.

• 1:18:38Matt Farah?

  Whoa, that's cool.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  For him to put in his garage, that's dad's old El Camino. This one's his. But I didn't talk to any of the family members about making the conversion. I just wanted to do it because I thought it would be cool.

• 1:18:50Matt Farah?

  It is cool.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  That's what I would want to do to one, so I did it there.

• 1:18:53Matt Farah?

  I mean, it's risky, but you, but you did the sentimental bit with the wall hanging. You got it in there. I think you, I think you thought, were very thoughtful in this. And this one has a wraparound rear windshield.

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:05Matt Farah?

  That's from the, that's, they all have that?

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  That's stock, yeah.

• 1:19:08Matt Farah?

  They all had a wraparound rear windshield? I didn't know that.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  But I got to do my Camaro El Camino.

• 1:19:13Matt Farah?

  That's pretty kick ass. That does look really good.

• 1:19:15Speaker 02

  The El Camaro.

• 1:19:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Go back, Zach, what else we got? We got time for one or two more, then we can let Chip get out of here before traffic. Back to OC, I know how it is.

• 1:19:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, Stuber Beetle. Uh, I know Chip is a vintage bicycle enthusiast. Are you?

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:36Matt Farah?

  Okay. Any chance of him giving some pre-war Elgin or Coulson the Foose treatment like his cars? I assume those are bicycles.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  You're going to see an episode of American Pickers.

• 1:19:48Matt Farah?

  Oh.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  It's coming up very soon. Mike Wolfe is a friend of mine and, uh, we have a mutual friend that has a shop. And Mike had a roadster in that shop and he had instructed the shop to pull the wheels on the car off. And it had an old set of lion hubcaps. And when I saw those in the shop, I said, "What are you doing with these?" And Tom Hardy has the shop in Georgia. And he says, "I gotta sell those." I said, "What do you want for them?" He gave me a price and I bought them. And Mike and I had become friends and he calls me one day about probably six or eight months after I had bought those hubcaps. And he says, "Dude," he says, "I didn't realize that the car I bought had so much history.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  I gotta put those hubcaps back on the car. Can I buy them back from you?" I said, "Of course." He says, "What do you want for them?" I said, "I want an Elgin Bluebird."

• 1:20:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Now, just two weeks ago, an Elgin Bluebird sold for $30,000.

• 1:20:48Matt Farah?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  All original.

• 1:20:49Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Oh, they, they, some of these old bikes have just-

• 1:20:53Matt Farah?

  I don't even know. Can you find a photo of an Elgin Bluebird, please? I don't, I don't even know. Would I know one if I saw it?

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  I have five of them now.

• 1:20:59Matt Farah?

  Fuck out of here. Really?

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Matt Farah?

  All right.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  I've got about 150 bikes.

• 1:21:04Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah. This is a very iconic shaped bicycle. Okay, yeah, this is like, this is like 50's motorola. Oh, it's 35?

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  36.

• 1:21:13Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow. Oh, so it's art, full art deco. This is, this is peak, this is some Y-Job era.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:20Matt Farah?

  God damn, is that pretty. All yours look like that?

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Matt Farah?

  Wow. You ride them?

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Well, they're not all finished like this. I've got, I've got two all original ones. And then I've got parts for several other ones and I have an absolutely over restored, perfect one.

• 1:21:37Matt Farah?

  Wow.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  That, that I did.

• 1:21:39Matt Farah?

  For those of you doing the audio version of this, do yourself a favor and Google an Elgin Bluebird. This is, oh, Zach's looking at a bottoms listing. Do we have a sale price on this one? Bonham says.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  That's a restored one, so it won't be as much.

• 1:21:51Matt Farah?

  This one says, estimate fourteen to sixteen thousand.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  If it's an original paint bike, they go ridiculous.

• 1:21:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Because they're only original ones.

• 1:22:00Matt Farah?

  Of course.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  And that's what the collectors really want.

• 1:22:02Matt Farah?

  Of course.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  So I've got two original ones, and then I've got others.

• 1:22:06Matt Farah?

  Have you ever refused to, uh, work on a car because of its, in order to preserve its originality?

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  I really don't do restoration work, because what I want to do is build what I call the bank of intellectual property.

• 1:22:19Matt Farah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  When you design something and build it, you own the design. Now, I can license that for models, diecast, t-shirts.

• 1:22:26Matt Farah?

  Smart man.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  My goal is to get paid ten years from now for what I'm doing today.

• 1:22:31Matt Farah?

  That's a good move.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  If you restore something, you only get paid for that day of work.

• 1:22:35Matt Farah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:22:37Matt Farah?

  That is, there's your nugget, right there. Make an Instagram reel out of that.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:22:42Matt Farah?

  That's the move. That's why Jay Leno doesn't do specials.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  But now I had a friend of mine.

• 1:22:46Matt Farah?

  I can do this joke in a club for thirty years.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  A friend of mine called me up and he says, hey, my brother-in-law, uh, wants to do some work on an old Dodge that he's got in his mom's garage. And I said, well, what is it? He says, I don't know. I said, well, you want me to come look at it? He says, sure. So he gives me the address and I drive over there and he's just pushing this nineteen sixty-eight Charger out of the garage.

• 1:23:14Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  And it's got a dual quad Hemi in it, all original, red with white interior.

• 1:23:20Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  And I looked at it and he says, I want to redo the whole thing and make it so I can enjoy it. I said, no.

• 1:23:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  You're not, you're not going to do that to this car. I said, you know, typically I won't do restoration, but I said, bring this one to my shop. And it hadn't run since the eighties, and this was probably five years ago.

• 1:23:38Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  Hadn't run since the eighties. I said, bring it over. And we went through everything mechanical. We did all the brakes. Went through absolutely everything mechanical on the car, got everything working. And then I found some old lacquer that would match it. And there was a little bit of rust in two spots, so I fixed those spots for him. And then we put the dog dish hubcaps. Had some Craigers on it. Put it all back stock for him and he enjoys it to this day. But it's an original pink sixty-eight dual quad Hemi Charger.

• 1:24:07Matt Farah?

  But I mean, which is amazing, but did you didn't then go, let's, we'll just, let's just go find you another one and we'll build this one. You know, we'll build another one. Okay, cool. So, once he had, once he had his.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  So, I never want to destroy something of value.

• 1:24:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  So, I helped him on that.

• 1:24:21Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Cause he's a friend. So, I really don't do that type of work, but I can.

• 1:24:25Matt Farah?

  Makes sense, yeah.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:24:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And it's Duesenberg's. Only if we're, only if we're doing Duesenberg's.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  Chop those up.

• 1:24:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Only if we're doing Duesenberg's.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  And you can find one on Hemmings.

• 1:24:35Matt Farah?

  For sure. They, what are there, thirty-five of them ever made or something? How many Duesenberg's are there?

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  Right around six hundred.

• 1:24:42Matt Farah?

  So, that many?

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  J models.

• 1:24:44Matt Farah?

  Js.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  But yeah, there were, there were.

• 1:24:45Matt Farah?

  I guess the SJ's were, were very low double digits, right?

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Duesenberg did a lot of race cars.

• 1:24:49Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  And then he had his A models and then the J models. And you know, they came out with that right at the, uh.

• 1:24:56Matt Farah?

  Depression.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  The depression. And that's what really hurt him.

• 1:24:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Do you, do you, do you happen to look a number?

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  I mean, they're currently zero for sale on Hemmings.

• 1:25:05Matt Farah?

  Try out AutoTempest for Duesenberg's.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Everybody should look though.

• 1:25:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. Everyone go look for Duesenberg's. Yeah. Let's get that search trending. Yeah. Um, man, so if you said your dream pro, you, you ideally scratch build, clean sheet design, not based on a car.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:23Matt Farah?

  When you, when you do that, how do you determine what the structure of the car is going to be?

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Well, you need to know what you're designing first. You know, is it a race car? Is it a muscle car? Is it a cruiser? Is it a, uh, truck? So, you know what your, what your purpose of the vehicle is first. And then you build it. And then, is it going to be a daily driver? Is it going to be something that's, you know? If it's a truck and we're gonna be using this? Or is this a show car that we wanna be able to win? Every car show that we ever take it to?

• 1:26:01Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  But then also be able to drive it across country?

• 1:26:04Matt Farah?

  Do you have a lot of folks that ask that you have to like basically talk? I mean, you said you said you only like an experienced client, so maybe not, but people ask me about this kinda stuff all the time. They effectively want a race car on the street. You know what I mean? Like, they want some giant blown like Alco Hall motor or some crazy thing and you go, "What are you doing with it?" "Well, I'm going driving to dinner and I'm going to Cars and Coffee or whatever."

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  That 62 Corvette, that owner had to have 800 plus horsepower. And to me, it's ridiculous to build an absolutely beautiful show car?

• 1:26:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  And put that kinda horsepower that can actually tear that car apart.

• 1:26:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  You know, I like building cruisers that you're not gonna be twisting it because you're putting so much horsepower into it.

• 1:26:50Matt Farah?

  I mean, if you have a C1 Corvette? And the pedal hits the floorboard with 800 horsepower? You are hitting the first tree. I mean, you're like, you're not keeping that car on the road.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  I'm putting myself in trouble.

• 1:27:05Matt Farah?

  I drove Art Morrison's personal C1? Which I think was maybe 500 horsepower back in like 09. Remember, he got the Gran Turismo award?

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  Way more power than you need.

• 1:27:15Matt Farah?

  Dude, the thing went sideways in like 4th gear. It was crazy.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Do you remember, um...

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  John Meehan had that 94 Corvette called Time Machine?

• 1:27:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah! Oh, man, I haven't heard about that in a while.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  I drove that car.

• 1:27:32Matt Farah?

  Seriously?

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  On the street?

• 1:27:35Matt Farah?

  I think, was it the first tuner car that was like over 1,000 horsepower on the street?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  It was crazy, but so much fun to drive.

• 1:27:41Matt Farah?

  Oh, my God, I haven't seen, I haven't seen, I haven't heard about this car in... Forever. This is the most nineties Corvette. Isn't that it right there?

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  I was on the, it was blue when I drove it.

• 1:27:56Matt Farah?

  Isn't, isn't it second row on the right?

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  This is purple.

• 1:28:00Matt Farah?

  No?

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  I mean, well, that's.

• 1:28:02Matt Farah?

  That's it. Yeah, that's it.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:28:04Matt Farah?

  It's, this is a terrible, it's a photo of a magazine.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  When we were doing, uh, Joe Rogan's Cuda.

• 1:28:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  At Troy Japaner's place. John brought that car over and Joe drove it and I drove it. But I'm on the street in Illinois. Doing two hundred and five miles an hour.

• 1:28:21Matt Farah?

  Oh my god. I drove one of those. I've driven some really neat Corvettes. I drove up the Pratt and Miller C6 RS, which was really, really cool. And I drove a, I drove an eighty-seven Callaway twin turbo.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Those were cool too.

• 1:28:37Matt Farah?

  Which was really neat.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:39Matt Farah?

  But it redlined at fifty-two hundred RPM. It was like a diesel. It was like five hundred and fifty pounds of torque. Apparently it did a hundred and eighty miles an hour, but like, I don't know how the math worked on the revs. It was the weirdest thing. As this time machine car just vanished into the ether.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I know that Troy repainted it. Ended up doing some really cool graphics on it.

• 1:28:59Matt Farah?

  Oh, cool. Someone will send, somebody will dig it out and, and, and send it in.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  So John took, took us out and we go through cornfields and we're driving way out in the middle of nowhere to, to, you know, take this car and, and have some fun with it. And he comes around a corner, we're driving down, and I said, "Ooh, there's a cop car." He says, "Yeah, this is my brother." Cause what he did is when we got out to a certain T.

• 1:29:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  And we made a left turn, we drove about ten miles down that road.

• 1:29:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  His brother with the cop car is blocking, so no traffic could come back down that way.

• 1:29:32Matt Farah?

  We do, we employ a similar strategy without the cops. We go, one of our favorite roads that we use for filming is a dead end road.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:40Matt Farah?

  So you go to the end.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Which is what we were on.

• 1:29:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you go to the end and then you work your way back. And that road is effectively cleared.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:47Matt Farah?

  There's no, we know there's nobody there. That's very easy.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  We put him there, so nobody would come down it.

• 1:29:53Matt Farah?

  We don't just, we don't have a cop, okay? What do you want us to do?

• 1:29:55Speaker 02

  And we're not going two oh five also.

• 1:29:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, we're also not like maxing out.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  What's amazing at two hundred and five miles an hour is the elevation change that you feel in the street.

• 1:30:05Matt Farah?

  Oh yeah. The road gets awfully.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Matt Farah?

  Up and down.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  It's not flat.

• 1:30:09Matt Farah?

  I've done Silver State a couple of times and you, and you get that. Silver State's annoying. You can go faster just getting to Silver State than you can go during the event. Um, we're gonna let you go. I know you got a long drive and you're a busy man, but I really appreciate the time.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  It was a pleasure. I really love your place here.

• 1:30:25Matt Farah?

  Thank you very much. If you ever wanna abandon a car somewhere, I would encourage you to do it here.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  How many can you take?

• 1:30:31Matt Farah?

  We can do a hundred and forty cars. He has a lot of cars. The other store, we're gonna be able to do more.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 1:30:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, down at South Bay.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  And that's in Garden Grove?

• 1:30:38Matt Farah?

  In Gardena.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Or Gardena, okay.

• 1:30:40Matt Farah?

  South Bay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  That's closer to me.

• 1:30:42Matt Farah?

  Is it?

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:43Matt Farah?

  Alright.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Um... I need to store about twelve cars.

• 1:30:47Matt Farah?

  Talk to me. Uh, talk to me after this. Uh, are you going to Air Water? Are you into Porsche at all? Are you interested in that?

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  I like Porsches. Yeah, they're pretty cool.

• 1:30:55Matt Farah?

  It's this weekend. You gonna come?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Where's it at?

• 1:30:56Matt Farah?

  At the OC Convention Center.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Oh, that's real close.

• 1:30:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. It's right by you.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  Is this my invitation?

• 1:31:01Matt Farah?

  Come!

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  Alright, I'll see you there.

• 1:31:03Matt Farah?

  I think you have extra tickets. Yeah, I literally have extra tickets, but, but you can, you're Chip Foose. You can come to anything. Yeah, also that. I have two cars in the show. My, my pink Spider and my, uh, Taycan, which I just got back today.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like to check it out. You know what I would love to do, build is a, uh, 914.

• 1:31:18Matt Farah?

  Okay. I'd like to see a Foose 914.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like to do some really fun stuff to that.

• 1:31:23Matt Farah?

  Okay. I, this is, this sounds like a plan.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  I did a sketch a little while ago. It was kind of a mix of, and I did it for, for Hemmings.

• 1:31:30Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  On, on that, you know, we were looking at all the cars and I looked at 914, and then I did a sketch of, what if the designers of the 930, back in the eighties,

• 1:31:40Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  did a 914?

• 1:31:42Matt Farah?

  Okay. Are you sure they weren't the same people?

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  They're the same people, but, but that, that influence.

• 1:31:48Matt Farah?

  So if you took the 930 style, applied to a 914, okay. Alright.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  And the blisters and the fenders.

• 1:31:54Matt Farah?

  Is that drawing up on Hemmings? Can I, can we see that somewhere?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's up yet or not.

• 1:31:58Matt Farah?

  Okay, but it will be. It's part of the thing. Okay, cool.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  It was like I say, it was like a five, ten minute sketch.

• 1:32:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and then we'll, you know, and put nine hundred horsepower in it and drive it to Cars and Coffee.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. But it got me thinking. I, you know, so now I'm looking at 914s and Hemmings.

• 1:32:12Matt Farah?

  I would like to see what you could do with a 914. I'd also like to see what you could do with a 928.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:32:17Matt Farah?

  Oh, whoa. You know what's funny? You've sort of made it look like a Toyota MR2. A little bit. They have slant nose. It's, yeah, there's like some slant nose going on there and, um...

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  But I love those little turns, the marker lights on the 914.

• 1:32:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  So from the side, it still looks like a 911.

• 1:32:35Matt Farah?

  Uh, I, I'll be honest, this drawing looks like you have done a bunch of acid and tried to draw a 914. Uh, it does look a little like, it looks real crazy. I'd love to see you try to build this. It does look nuts.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  It'd be fun to build.

• 1:32:48Matt Farah?

  It would be, it would be insane. Um, what a treat. Thank you for stopping by, Chip.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 1:32:53Matt Farah?

  I appreciate it. Um, someone out there, please just write him a check and have him build you a car. That's really what we're going for here.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  I want to do your 914 for you.

• 1:33:00Matt Farah?

  The 914, yeah. Have you, has anyone been dreaming of a 914 with pedigree? Let's go.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:33:07Matt Farah?

  Thank you, Chip, and thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions today, and I will see you next time. Goodbye.