Chip Foose was known among hot rodders even before his last name became a brand for all kinds of auto parts. Before participating in various TV shows, Chip made a name for himself back in the late 90s, when he developed CDs and full-fledged projects for Boyd Coddington. And Street Rodder magazine introduced its readers to Fuz back in 1992, even though they were interviewing not so much Chip as his father, the famous hot rodder and legend of the custom scene Sam Fuz. At that time, Chip was 27 years old, and he had been working on cars with his father for twenty years.
It’s hard to say if Chip Fuz wanted his popularity – he seemed to have been working on cars for three decades and wasn’t really chasing fame. However, the chip has become famous, and such a thing on the custom scene means two things. First, because of the specifics of the entire movement, the fame of car makers often highlights only small episodes of their lives, while the rest of their history remains shrouded in darkness. And the second, much more positive thing: because of all the same specifics, fame is transferred from people to their cars, and sometimes the latter get even more spotlight than those who created them.
And the P-32, built by Fuze in the middle of the two thousandth, was undoubtedly the most famous V12-powered hot rod for a long time. It is noteworthy that the Chip did not look back at other cars: the Lincoln engine was chosen simply because of its aesthetic qualities, and the whole project was conceived under the impression of the P-38 Lightning and P-40 Warhawk aircraft. It was with an eye on the war machines that the decision was made to leave visible all the “scars” from welding, hammer marks and other seams: according to Fuze’s idea, everything should look like the car was repaired as soon as possible between battles and the goal was to make it not beautiful, but just working again.
By the way, there was no aircraft called the P-32 – the number 32 means the year of creation of Ford, on the frame of which this hot rod is built. The body looks vintage, but it’s actually new and, oddly enough, made of steel – it was made by the Brookville Roadster company from Ohio, which specializes in creating replacement panels for old bodies. A little later, Chip Fuz shortened the front panels by 5 centimeters and extended the doors to the vacant space in order to give the car more pleasing proportions to the eye. And apart from everything else, the nose of the car was designed and made of aluminum.
The rest of the spare parts are a typical hodgepodge of various cars from the last century. The transmission? The 39th Lincoln Zephyr. The steering column? The 54th Corvette. The rims and driveshaft are from a 32nd Ford, the front tires are from a motorcycle, and the taillights are from a 36th Lincoln. The radiator grille is a Chevy 35, which was an earlier Fuze project and now bears the name Grand Master. The dashboard is from a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, but it was slightly shortened by cutting off the ashtrays to fit into its new place. The seats are completely from the B-17 bomber, which Fuz bought for a hundred from a friend who repairs airplanes at John Wayne Airport.
And, of course, the engine is a 4.8-liter Lincoln Zephyr V12 with two Stromberg 97 carburettors. Chip noted that it is possible to find such a motor without any special problems – he personally had four such engines in 2008. But the eternal problem of these units in the form of extremely crappy cooling has not bypassed Comrade Fuz: in his own words, after just 15 kilometers, the V12 is already heating up to such an extent that you want to stop right there so as not to inadvertently break something. In this particular case, the problem was not least because of the rather small custom radiator, which could not be made larger without hitting the front axle…
Nevertheless, the car came out quite famous. Chip had a variety of plans for it: from the desire to install either a pair of front headlights of the 32nd year, or one of several sets of spotlights of different sizes, to the construction of a second P-32, but polished to a shine and neatly painted. Since this hot rod still appears at exhibitions from time to time, you can see firsthand that most of these plans have not been implemented. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the headlights did not appear even on collectible models: the P-32 was available in all colors of the rainbow, sometimes even with a roof, but never with headlights. That’s probably fate.
Sources: https://journal.classiccars.com/2017/11/06/sema-seen-chip-foose-p-32-hot-rod / (November 6th, 2017)
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/0705sr-chip-foose-p32 / (March 1st, 2008)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zO6IjEnb88
