(courtesy) Barrett-Jackson
Feature: Little Foose Coupe
October 1, 2007
What is it about Chip Foose? How is it this boy-faced 44 year old, one of the
current kings of the custom-car business, knows precisely how to tap into that
spot in the brain that dilates the pupils, elevates the heart rate, and turns
rational speech into gobbledygook? With each successive design, Foose has come
closer to achieving automotive nirvana, and with the car you see before you, he
may have arrived.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Unveiled to universal acclaim at last year’s SEMA show in Las
Vegas, the stunning Hemisfear concept has for years been a grail of sorts for
Foose. In 1990, while a student in the transportation design program at
Pasadena’s venerated Art Center College, he crafted a metallic-violet
masterpiece for his senior project. Sponsored by Chrysler, this two-seat,
mid-engine coupe mock-up stunningly merged traditional hot rod form and
state-of-the-art supercar function (and two years later begat—with no credit to
Foose—Chrysler’s unabashedly similar Plymouth Prowler concept). (Click image to enlarge); function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
Sixteen years later, Foose is a superstar: He enjoyed a wildly
successful stint as hot-rodder Boyd Coddington’s right-hand man, became the
youngest Hot Rod Hall of Fame inductee at age 31, and he (with wife Lynne)
started Foose Design—all the while filling shelf after shelf with awards,
signing a bevy of licensing and endorsement deals, and, of course, starring in
his own reality television series. (Click image to enlarge)
During the Coddington years, Foose tried to create a running
Hemisfear Coupe, but the project fizzled. Now, however, with seed money from the
Illinois-based toy manufacturer RC2—whose JL Full Throttle brand produces
die-cast scale models of Foose hot rods—the dream could at last make the leap to
reality.
Foose enlisted the famed Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters for the
show car’s construction. Metalcrafters’ concept-car work for a host of
automakers (notably Chrysler) is by now the stuff of legend. The company is the
Santa’s Workshop of the fabrication business, with a dream team of artisans
working in all automotive mediums: steel, aluminum, composite materials, chrome,
and leather—the shop even shapes its own glass. But unlike most manufacturer
concept cars, the Foose Coupe was to be no mere show-stand glamour queen. This
car would be built to drive—and, if Metalcrafters had its way, to sell.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
This green Hemisfear prototype served
as a placeholder at Barrett-Jackson’s Palm Beach auction in April, where an Atlanta collector paid $330,000 for the first publicly available
Foose Coupe. (Click image to enlarge)
Foose initially envisioned the full-scale Hemisfear as the big green dream
that would sell a million die-cast models, but Metalcrafters—which had never
built a series-production car—had a different notion. "I just wanted them to
make the show car," notes Foose, "They’re the ones who came up with the idea to
make 50 of them." The ambitious plan called for the
Coupes to emerge from the Gaffoglio shop in Fountain Valley, Calif., at a rate
of two cars per month over the course of two years—and be sold directly through
Metalcrafters and the Texas-based rod shop, Unique Performance. It was an offer
Foose couldn’t refuse.
The price, a cool $298,000 plus options, includes a private
pre-build audience with Foose himself. "I sit down with the buyer and together
we design their paint scheme, wheels, interior, and we figure out which motor’s
going in the car," he explains. Once finished, each Coupe is numbered, signed by
the designer, and documented in an official Foose registry. To circumvent the
rules governing registration of true production automobiles, Foose Coupes will
be sold as unfinished component vehicles—without the engine installed—and
registered as kit cars.
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