Later, the car won honors at the 1955 Los Angeles Autorama car show. All this scrambling instilled in him a dogged, untiring work ethic, one that would power his life.ĭuring high school Sam built his first hot rod, a customized ’42 Ford coupe, which was a portent of great cars to come. To survive, Sam bunked in his girlfriend’s garage and turned wrenches to make ends meet he’d learned basic metal and mechanical skills in junior high school shop. Sam, age 14, decided to stay in Santa Barbara and take his chances going solo as a teenager. After a few years, the job went south and the family did too, back to LA. When he was young, his father – also named Sam – took a job in the root-beer business up the coast in Santa Barbara. Sam Foose was born in 1934 in southern California. Huh? But what about Chip Foose, the design pioneer who overhauled the entire look of hot rods in the 1990s and 2000s? No, we’re talking about Sam – Chip’s father – who bent and shaped custom car metal long before Chip was old enough to sweep a shop floor. It’s the purpose of this column to chronicle these giants, the icons who created the hobby we enjoy today. It’s a name as essential to the history of hot rodding as Parks, Petersen, Roth, Shelby, Barris, and dozens more.
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