Chip Foose is an American car designer and a very known actor in Overhaulin’ TV series.

Early life

He was born on October 13, 1963 in Santa Barbara, California, United States.

Since he was  very little he was surrounded by car because his father Sam  worked in a company called Project Design and was a big car enthusiast. When he was  twelve, Chip already painted his first car, a beautiful Porsche 356 and often worked on cars with his father.

Chip learned his drawing skills from his dad, trying to make the best copies of his designs. That is how he found his own design.

He enrolled to the Art Center College of Design in 1982 being persuded by  Alex Tremulis, a designer  for Ford who has seen his drawings and sketches, but had to quit for a while because his parents coludn’t afford it any more. He got himself a job and returned to finish his college later, mostly because of his girlfriend Lynn who was a lawyer and who wanted him to finish college.

Career development

In 1990 he graduated with honors and started working for two different designing companies. Three years later he started working for Boyd Coddington.

After he showed his value he became the president of Hot Rods by Boyd  and made some of his best creations working for this firm. He became world known for designs  named Roadster, Boydster  and many more.

He was one of the most famous American car designers so he was called to do designs of vehicles and show cars for many films.  Some of them are Robo Cop, Gone in 60 Seconds and Transformers.

He stayed in that company for a long time, until 1998, when he decided it was time to begin his solo career so he opened his own design company called Foose design.

Only one year later Chip won the prestigious  America’s Most Beautiful Roadster  Award and soon after he started  getting awards almost every year.

A new incredible thing for Chip was when the Discovery Channel made a documentary named “Rides” in 2003. It has not only shown his history work and his awards,  but the viewers could see for themselves what a great talent he has by re-designing a Thunderbird into a “Speedbird” from 2002, which brought him yet another reward.

Even for that car he won another award: “Best of Show” from Ford Motor Company. In 2006 Ford chose Foose for a new designer for their vehicles and they were shown on 2007 New York City Auto Show.

A TV series Overhaulin’ started showing on TV in 2004 and the producers chose Chip for their main actor. A TV show called “Overhaulin’ “ aired on TLC and had quite  a few fans. In five seasons they filmed this series he restored over 80 vehicles, and they all became beautiful arts.

That turned his work into the direction he wanted, into serious business. He started making designs for NASCAR and other famous clients.

In 2005 Chip was asked by the managers of a Pixar studio to help making schemes and graphics for the famous children cartoon “Cars”. They were very pleased with his work so he helped them later when the sequel “Cars 2”.

In 2009 he was back on TV, this time as a judge in the show called “Ultimate car Build-off”.

Overhaulin’ ended in 2009 but it started filming again in 2012 because of people’s big interest in this kind of show.In  the documentary series “American Icon: The Hot Rod”  on Discovery he was one of the hosts.

Foose hasn’t designed only cars: he designed sunglasses and footwear for Oakley Inc. His company has only seven employees because Chop decided not to load himself with work but to choose work and do it passionately and slowly until it os perfect.

Personal life

Heis married  to Lynn foose for a very long time. They have two children together:  a son Brock and a daughter Kate. They are often visiting him at his workplace, as he visited his father.

A few years ago Chip and Lynn had some marrital issues, and he was suspected to cheat on her, but they overpassed it and they are still together.

Philantropic work

His sister died of porgeria in 1985 so he often helps organizations that are connected with children and in research of this disease. He was very close to her and it had a great impact on him.

A lot of shows he attends are connected to charity work, like for the organizations Childhelp and Victory Junction Gang Camp. From 1994 he regularly helps them, especially the Childhelp because it helps abused children to recover.

Quick summary:

Full name: Chip Foose

Date of Birth: October 13, 1963

Birthplace: Santa Barbara, California

Age: 54

Profession: car designer, TV host

Height: N/A

Weight: N/A

Net Worth: $ 18,5 million