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.

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

Toy Fair, SEMA and Hemisfear…Oh My!

This is a huge time of year for us at JL Full Throttle. The Team is furiously working on completing samples, packaging and art for the annual New York Toy Fair. We’ve also been knee deep in SEMA preparations as well. Nothing however compares to what the guys working on the JLFT Hemisfear have been going through.

Toy Fair as many of you may know is an industry event where buyers and various personnel from the many retailers come to NY to check out what everyone in the toy industry is preparing for next year. The Design elves work so far out that what all of us have been up to will be filling Santa’s bags next Christmas season rather then in a few months. JLFT has some new treats in store for all of you fans. More Foose will be on the way and many of your favorite Overhaulin’ cars are already being scaled and replicated in JL Full Throttle style at this very moment. In the mean time check out “Mix C” which should be hitting retail at any moment. Mix C is chock full of new tooling including the 71 Challenger, 56 Nomad, 52 GMC Truck and 70 Camaro from Overhaulin’ along with the “SickFish” 1970 Plymouth ‘cuda Chip and the team at Rad Rods by Troy built for a certain Fear Factor star…

SEMA is just a couple weeks away and the preparations for the October 31st world premier of the JL Full Throttle Hemisfear are also managing to keep the JLFT Team extra busy. The Team will have Chip Foose as well as Overhaulin’s Chris Jacobs on hand to help unveil the full scale, real life Hemisfear. If you’ve been keeping up with the JLFT Hemisfear story you know that this is one insane machine. This ride features a 600hp engine mounted just in front of the rear axle. Cradled in carbon fiber this engine should rocket the JLFT Hemisfear 0-60mph in under 4 seconds, give or take. This is super car performance in a Hot Rod meets Muscle Car body. Something we like to call the world first Super Rod. When we pull the cover off this monster at SEMA we will be uncovering the matching miniatures in LRG and SM scales. A lucky 500 people at SEMA will take home an exclusive SM scale model and an even luckier 100 will take home special edition LRG scale models. Don’t call and complain though ‘because we got made sure even more made it out to you guys, the fans. We ran about 2500 total of each LRG and SM model and we will be making them available to the general public with the SM scale models reaching retail via Mix D and the remaining LRG models being available through a very special retail partner we cannot name just yet.

The Hemisfear is getting closer to completion. Wheels have been cut. Most of the body work is out of the molds and is being fit to the frame. The Engine is rumored to be near completion, though no one at JLFT has seen it! The team at Metal Crafters claims it should be ready for paint in a week, which will make the deadline tighter then anything seen on Overhaulin’. At least on Overhaulin’ the team has all of the parts for the car ready in advance and the big difference is that there are off the shelf parts available. Since, Oh, there is probably a good 50K of the cars on the road, at one time or another there is also some knowledge of how the parts fit together and work. With the JLFT Hemisfear everything is scratch built and must meet Chip’s exacting standards.

We plan on rolling it out into the Mothers Polishes and Waxes booth on October 31st. Check back for some update picks and when we pull the cover off you’ll see it first right here on the JLFT Designer Bog. –JLFT ET

The JLFT Team makes a surprise visit to the set of OVERHAULIN!

JL Full Throttle's Eric Tscherne and Jeremy Cox droped in on Chip and the A-Team a couple weeka ago. Check out the OVERHAULIN’ crew’s reaction to the JLFT Foose Design cars during the OVERHAULIN’ build of the 53 Corvette!

Foose Checks Out the Line and Gets to Work On Some New Projects with JLFT's Eric Tscherne

On a recent visit to the JL Full Throttle offices, Chip had a chance to spread out all the new JLFT models, work on future models and he discovers a special rare model among the SM scale cars!