The One That Started It All!

OK this is not the car that started the JL Full Throttle / Foose Die cast line. It wasn't even the first car we chose for the line. This hot rod 1971 Chevelle wasn't responsible for starting the career of one of the greatest automotive designers in Chip Foose either. This car was, the one that got the Overhaulin' party started and helped launch the career of Chip Foose into the stratosphere!

Chip Foose and Overhaulin' producer Bud Brutsman had the idea for the ultimate car makeover show. Chip and Crew would steal an unsuspecting but deserving guy's car and in a few days turn it into their dream machine.

Chip and Bud enlisted many of their automotive industry friends and colleagues to help one being, Jim Holloway from Mothers. Jim knew of just the right car to start with. Jeff Miller, owner of a beat down bowtie happened to work up the street at Original Parts Group and dreamed of fixing up his cherished Chevy.

They had their "Mark" and with Jim's help they took possession of Jeff's Chevelle under the guise of it being in an infomercial. Jeff was told he'd get his car back unharmed in a week.

That's when Chip and the Overhaulin team took over transforming the worn out muscle car into a ride that would turn heads. Chip had the car lowered down and sat it on some billet Budnicks. This is one of only a few rides on Overhaulin' not to sport Foose Wheels!

Chip and crew pulled the engine and dropped in a fresh 350 from the guys at Edlebrock. Mitch Lanzini from Lanzini Bodyworks, in Huntington Beach, California, sprayed the fresh candy apple red paint and coated the champagne flames laid out by Foose.

Inside Cobra Racing seats and fresh panels from Original parts group finish off this fresh ride. The Overhaulin' guys though it would be funny to pull a prank on Jeff so they sent one of the crew over with some of the parts from his own Chevelle that needed to be replaced. Jeff had no idea what he was looking at as he filled the customer's order and actually finished off his own Chevelle!

JL Full Throttle replicated the Overhaulin' Chevelle in both LRG and SM scales. The SM scale features a brilliant Candy Apple Red paint with miniature Foose flamed stripes over the opening hood. Mini Budnicks are located at the corners of both the LRG and SM models. The LRG model has a finely detailed engine and an opening trunk complete with a custom stereo system. Opening the doors you can see the bucket seats and more. The shots of the SM Scale die cast again come from Noah out of Ohio who continues to find the mini Foose rides very photogenic.

The '71 appeared on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine in April 2005 with former Overhaulin' host Courtney Hansen. Jeff drives his Chevelle to work from time to time which is where the JLFT Team caught up with him and snapped these shots back in 2005. JL Full Throttle's Eric Tscherne wanted to make sure that such a monumental car was captured and replicated in the Foose line. "Overhaulin' didn't make Foose" noted Tscherne. "Foose made Overhaulin' and with that they made dreams come true and inspired countless others.-JLFT Team

FT Unit

When we first conceived the Rock Rigs line of trucks there were a couple of things we wanted to do:

#1 They had to have working suspensions on BOTH scales.
#2 They had to capture the attitude of the off-road enthusiast.
#3 They had to be cool.

Scaling the intricate suspensions of full size lifted trucks down to the SM and LRG Scales was not easy especially in the SM Scale. The complex suspensions had to be simplified and recreated in a way that we could manufacture them. The next thing we had to do was figure out how to make it work like the real thing or reasonable close and where to hide the oversized springs! Once this was done we could focus on the killer decos we planned to apply.

We knew that many of our servicemen and women had some of the best real life Rock Rigs. We knew that the attitudes of our armed forces synced up perfectly with the rugged, go anywhere attitude of the off-road enthusiast as well. We immediately felt there was a way to combine these two ideas into one killer combo, enter the FT Unit! The FT Unit combines the look and feel of military machines with our Rock Rigs vehicles and serves as JL Full Throttle’s tribute to our troops.

The first one we did is this camouflage Chevy Silverado. Flat Army-spec green covers the sides with an old-school camo print. Sure our boys have entered the new millennium with their digital camo but everyone recognizes the classic pattern. We also added some inversed shoulder stripes (technically those of a sergeant) as a bold graphic element and some Rock Rigs signature kill marks, signifying some conquered trails. Those who look real close will see the serial number AWT-001. JL Full Throttle’s Eric Tscherne included this marking as a tribute too his brother 1st LT Adam Tscherne of the 3rd Special Forces Unit currently stationed in Afghanistan. Eric wanted his brother and the other soldiers to realize that while they are away they are not forgotten. Eric says this is by far his favorite of the Rock Rigs vehicles.


JLFT Superfan and photo-guru, Noah captured this rugged Rock Rig and all of its details! The SM Scale model has an opening hood to go with the previously mentioned suspension. The wheels are covered with a special olive-gold chrome finish and are accented with some matching flat green.

The second model featured in the FT Unit is the bomber inspired Ford F-150. Noah captures this one too. He titled this set of photos: Peace; Through Superior Firepower.

The House of Kolor silver F-150 has a killer set of teeth painted on each side with the eerie eye of a shark focused on the terrain ahead. The bolt pattern laid over the sheet metal evokes the feel of a fighter jet’s skin. Also scattered over the body are a series of warning labels reminding us to use caution and where we shouldn’t tread. With the custom chromed suspension under this Rock Rig there is not where it shouldn’t step. The Wheels on this model are special edition Weld Racing wheels in chrome with the edges accented in candy blue. The sides also feature the insignia of our US Naval jets. The Navy like the Army and the rest of our armed forces are actively defending our freedoms throughout the globe.

The Silverado and F-150 are the first of 5 trucks dedicated to our troops. Look out for the Flying Belle Dodge Ram and a Guerrilla style 1970 Chevy Blazer ready to ship out soon. The JL Full Throttle Team would like to salute all of our servicemen throughout the country and around the world. They are our Brothers, Fathers, Uncles, Sons, Daughters, Nieces and Nephews. They are our neighbors and friends and they have given us the ultimate sacrifice. We thank them.

First Impressions

The moment you see something or experience something for the first time that moment will be etched in your mind for ever. The moment JLFT’s Eric Tscherne first saw Impression up close is permanently tattooed on his brain.
Tscherne first saw Impression in the magazines and on TLC’s Rides TV show, like everyone else. Sure he had seen it at various stages during its construction but he had not seen it in its completed form until the JLFT Team stopped by his shop during the early days of JL Full Throttle 2 years ago. The car blew him away! “It truly is a masterpiece, a work of art” said Tscherne, “It’s more than a car”.

After seeing the car first hand, sitting in it and being shown all of the details by Chip himself, Tscherne knew this car had to be done in die cast. “There is only one Impression.” Says Tscherne, “but by creating the JLFT version, everyone can experience this beautiful machine first hand.” That was no small order for the JLFT Team. Tscherne wanted the car to be as beautiful and perfect as the real one. It had to have the same attention to detail that Chip and the guys at Foose design put into the real deal.


The real deal by the way topped the 2 million dollar mark and set the standard by which hot rods will be measured for years to come. The Impression won BOTH the prestigious Ridler Award at Detroit’s famed Autorama AND the AMBR award as America’s Most Beautiful Roadster. These 2 awards are at the pinnacle of custom car building and Chip simultaneously held them both, a feat that may never be duplicated.

The Impression started out as a project for Ken Reister. The car, inspired by a 1936 Ford and the Smoothster, a street rod designed by Larry Erickson over 10 years before, took over 6 years to build. The car is more of a coach built car then a custom. Every single part other then some driveline components and the engine were hand built and designed specifically for this one ride.


Chip designed everything. The body, while taking cues from the famed ’36 Ford, is Chip’s own design. The team at Foose design scaled up a ¼ scale model Chip built and turned it into a skeleton which they used to hammer out the sheet metal that forms Impression’s body. Chip also had the crew “finish” every panel, wrapping the edges out of sight and including inner panels throughout to give the car a continuous skin. This alone nearly doubled the amount of bodywork that Impression received.

The JLFT Team took special care to ensure the shaping of this car came out to perfection. Working directly with Chip, Tscherne instructed the JLFT model builders throughout the build. Chip reviewed Impression with Tscherne twice as long and twice as much as any other car in the line before the JLFT Hemisfear. “We reviewed and revised that car so many times we nearly missed the ship date!” recalls Tscherne.

“We went to extremes on this car” noted Tscherne. “We went so far as to work directly with BASF and Charlie Hutton on the color of the paint”. The JLFT Team did not settle for a standard silver. They contacted BASF who wisely noted the formula of the paint Charlie and Chip cooked up. BASF labeled the color Chipeweter a term Hutton coined as the color was not silver and not quite pewter with a small amount of khaki green thrown in . The JLFT Team got a set of paint chips to their facilities in China for replication. “The color is spot on” said Hutton who layered the paint on Impression after leaving another famous builder’s shop.

The Impression has a European flair to it. The body lines and shapes all flow perfectly together with minimal interruption, if any. The details too, take on a European flair. The wheels are reminiscent of spoked wheels that may have appeared on a coach built classic blended with hot rodding’s traditional 5 spoke. Chip took one 5 spoke and brought the spokes to the outer edge while he took another 5 spoke twisted it and sent those spokes back towards the wheels center. This gives the wheels and almost wire like look.

The headlights are another amazing detail. Chip with the power of modern technology was able to create one of a kind headlights for Impression. Unlike other builds that use Mercedes or other off the shelf components for lighting Chip crafted a dual stacked projector beam headlight set that when viewed from the front create the famed Ford V8 logo. The JLFT model too incorporates this signature detail in its LRG scale model.


The Impression has also left its mark on JL Full Throttle collector Noah, from Columbus, Ohio. Noah was so inspired by Impression he took not one but 2 of them out of their cozy packages and began clicking some killer pics leaving his impression on this one of a kind rod. Noah expertly captured the subtle curves and glistening paint in his photographs. They even have a similar quality to the shot taken by master photographer Scott Williamson who shot the pics of the full size Impression seen in this article.

The Impression has left a lasting mark on hot rodding and the JL Full Throttle version is sure to leave a lasting mark in any collection or alone on your desk or shelf. The car has inspired many to try and duplicate it but none has come close until JL Full Throttle.
-JLFT Team

PS, Where do you get an Orange Impression? Well seems at one time Chip wanted to paint the real car orange. We dug through his sketches and found this unique color combo and thought we'd bring it to you as part of the Artist Series! It's only available in SM Scale andthere is a special "raw" Impression in LRG Scale the JLFT Designer Eric Tscherne thought replicated the look of Impression the first time he saw it.

Cuda had an Escalade

Check out the latest SickFish 'cuda and the new 2007 Escalade.

The BOSS is Back!

Check out the new 1970 BOSS 302 Mustang from TLC's Overhaulin' show. Chip and the A-Team rescued yet another Stang from the glue factory. In 7 short days the crew transformed the rustang into a beautiful BOSS. it didn't take the JLFT team too long to decide this one had to be scaled!

The JL Full Throttle model captures the look of the Overhaulin' BOSS complete with the chromed out 302 under the opening hood. The engine is small but it truly captures the big power shoehorned into the mighty Mustang. Magnaflow Exhaust hangs underneath the real deal and sends the exhaust notes roaring out the back like on all Overhaulin' cars. JLFT does their best to replicate the look in it's mini models.

The Mustang's exterior previoulsy had the owner singing the blues now it's just blue, albiet a really sweet looking Blue!. The hood is adorned with FOOSE-ified BOSS 302 striping in a special silver that can almost appear white. It is trimmed in a red-orange pinstripe. On the sides you can see the same BOSS 302 striping over the special ultra-deep Candy Blue paint we scored from our friends at House of Kolor. "HOK really helped us to create some of the best paints in the diecast business" says JL Full Throttle Creative director, Eric Tscherne, "which makes the JL Full Throttle cars really standout". The trained eye will see the wrong wheels are on our JLFT version, which has Foose Ascots on the corners. The photographed sample is a prototype and the production models will get the Foose Nitrous wheels that graced the fenders of the Overhaulin' pony. Also outback you can see chrome trim around the tail lights that will get blacked out in production to match Chip's Overhaulin' masterpiece.

The interior of the full sized pony is fitted with new racing style seats and all of it has been covered in fine leather from Katzkin Leather. Obviously the JLFT model is complete with it's plastic version of the Katzkin equipped machine. On the corners of this mini-Mustang you'll see pint-sized versions of BF Goodrich's G Force T/A tires. BF Goodrich has been outfitting nearly every Overhaulin ride since the show started and on nearly every one of the JL Full Throttle Foose cars you'll notice the attention to detail goes down to the treads where we even match the patterns of the life size rides!

"This Overhaulin' ride, the Foose 100,the 1968 Roadrunner and others should hit stores in mix D", says Tscherne. There are a couple other pics above that show some future foose rides that should also roll out in 2007. Check back here to see them reviewed as we get nearer to their availabilty, Enjoy!-JLFT Team