MICHAEL ECKERSON March 10, 2023 All Feature Vehicles
D! What was your childhood like growing up in Illinois?
CJ: I grew up about a half-hour north of downtown Chicago. It was a great place to grow up. Lots of sports, great friends, my dad, and my brothers.
Both brothers had cool cars. So that was my first exposure to cars. My dad always had Porsche 911s when I was growing up and my brother, Zach had a cool ‘67 GTO convertible. My brother, Clay had a late 70s Z28. I was exposed to some cool cars. That was really kind of the kickoff.
I’ve lived in California since 1988, but I will always consider myself a Chicagoan, and I go back quite often. My family is still there. I follow all the Chicago sports teams. I just love being from Chicago.
D! Do you have any good stories about you and your brothers, and either of those cars?
CJ: One of my most distinct memories is of my brother, Clay, working on the Z28 in the driveway and just thinking what a cool car it was and then. You know, recently at the auctions, those cars are starting to come up now, and so that always brings you back to that time seeing my brother working on that car in the driveway. It’s one of those indelible memories that I have.
And then my dad’s 911, I remember, being very, very young, probably six or seven years old, and thinking how cool it was it. When I was in the back seat of the 911 with those fold-down seats, I was thinking that I must be a big boy because my feet touch the ground. It’s a funny memory of those seats back. There are so small, but I thought that was pretty cool. I think that’s really where I first got my love for the 911. I’ve had one since 2005 and I bought it as a tribute to my dad. That’s the one car in my collection that I will never sell.
D! You attended college in Southern California, and you earned a bachelor’s degree in English. Share with us some of your experiences.
CJ: I attended a small liberal arts school in Whittier which is about a half hour outside of LA. And while I was growing up, I always wanted to come to Los Angeles because the entertainment capital of the world and my dream as a little kid was to be an actor. I came out here when I was eighteen and I’ve lived out here ever since. It was a great place to go to school. I made some great friends. Some guys that I’m still friends with today.
After I went to Whittier College, I went to law school in Orange County just to get my education out of the way, before I started chasing the dream of being in the entertainment business. I passed the California Bar on my first try, which I still consider my greatest accomplishment ever. That was way back in 1995.
So, I was an attorney at twenty-five but never really intended to practice. I always wanted to use that as a backup in case entertainment didn’t work out. Fortunately, I have never had to fall back. I don’t think people would want to have me as their attorney anyway. I don’t remember anything about it. It’s been so long since I took the Bar.
D! The eighties in So Cal was an amazing time. Tell us about your life then.
CJ: It was just the very end of the eighties. I got to So Cal in August 1988. It was a cool time to be in California, hard to believe it was so long ago. That was before cell phones, the internet, social media, and everything like that. It really was a different world back then. A much more innocent world.
I actually got my first cool car at that time which was a 1964 and a half Mustang convertible with a little 260 in it. It was sunlight yellow with a tan interior. The only change I made to it was I put the Mustang mag wheels on. I drove that car for probably four or five years. It was really reliable since it was such a small and simple engine. I kind of got my love of muscle cars from that car. Not to say that that car was a muscle car. It wasn’t until Mustang upgraded their engine options that they really became muscle cars. But that era of car, I guess, for me, that one is really the seed.
That joy overflowed onto everybody else and that’s what made it worth it. That’s really the heart of the show.
D! Tell us a little bit more about the decision to pursue that career in entertainment.
CJ: It was always a childhood dream of mine. I was in plays when I was a young kid and always liked putting on shows in my parent’s basement during their dinner parties, which I’m sure was super annoying to them at the time. But you know, the entertainer in me couldn’t be denied. So that’s really what I wanted to do for my whole life was to be in entertainment. As soon as I passing the bar, I moved out to LA proper and just started chasing the dream.
It came relatively easy at first, I was able to book a couple of commercials. I was able to make a living for those first few years and then, you know, as it always happens, you go through a little bit of a dry spell and I realized how hard it actually is. But I stuck to it off-and-on for eight years.
I was a working actor and did a bunch of commercials, television shows, and movies. Then in 2003, I went for an audition for Overhaulin’. My agent sent me on the audition because they were looking for an actor who was going to be able to play the pranks on the show and improvise. That was kind of one of my specialties. So I went on the audition and I remember just having fun with it.
Courtney Hansen had already been cast on the show. She and I had to test together. They had a table set up with a bunch of various car parts on it. They asked me to identify some car parts. It wasn’t that tough; that’s a spark plug and that’s the valve cover, and that’s a gas cap.
They called me back a couple of weeks later and told me that I got the job. I was really excited about it. I had never hosted anything before but I realized that I’m much better at being myself than I am trying to play a role. So that’s really what transitioned me from being an actor to being a host.
We really didn’t know what the show was going to be about. I remember going to Budnik’s in Huntington Beach and meeting everybody, meeting Chip, and seeing what a cool guy he is. We kind of just felt our way through it on the first few builds. And then it came to be where we just found our way. We realized that we just wanted to have fun and we were making somebody’s dream come true.
That was always the goal. That attitude kind of trickled down from Chip. He was the guy who set the bar for the rest of us. He has the job of leading the A-team and rebuilding the car. I had the job of playing the pranks and messing with the person who owned the car. We just found this magic formula that happened to work for the next, hundred-and-sixty-some odd episodes.
It’s just amazing. It really baffles me to think back that we started making the show nineteen years ago. It’s crazy to think that it’s been such a long time and the show has been on the air ever since. It really changed my life and it opened up so many other opportunities for me. That’s really my calling card and one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me.
D! You could tell that the work atmosphere was joyful. The work culture seemed like it was just really something fun to be a part of.
CJ: Absolutely. We had that common goal of making somebody’s dream come true through rebuilding their car that they’ve hung onto because of their emotional connection. That’s really what we tapped into for inspiration. The payoff, obviously, was giving the car back to the person at the end of the show.
Pretty much any car that’s on the road right now, there is someone out there who has an emotional connection to it. Obviously, the cars that we would rebuild were extra special just because they’re from a bygone era so people have even stronger emotional connections to them. Whether it be through family or personal experience that they had in the car but giving it back completely rebuilt, just was such a joyous day for them. That joy overflowed onto everybody else and that’s what made it worth it. That’s really the heart of the show.
What if I sent it back to you, you drove it for a little bit and then we’ll put it through the auction circuit again, and get another charity donation?
D! We were honored to be able to interview Courtney several years ago. She told us that you all used to prank each other a lot. Can you share with us one of your favorite pranks from the show?
CJ: We were in Wyoming doing a build at WyoTech. It was a really difficult build because Chip took a 210 post car and, I think it was a four-door that he stretched out into a two-door. We cut the top off of it and made a convertible. The shop hours were very, very long. We like to break each other up by playing pranks. One day, I went into Chip’s room with Courtney and we turned everything upside down in his hotel room. We turned the bed upside down, the dresser upside down, the side tables, and everything. When he got back to his room, after a long day in the shop, he was looking to just go to sleep. He went into his room and found everything was turned upside down.
D! Along with co-host, Lisa Joyner, you hosted Long Lost Family which reunited biological families. Tell us what compels you to help so many?
CJ: Well, that’s my story, and that’s Lisa’s story as well. We were both adopted and both had the amazing opportunity to reconnect with our birth families. So, when TLC was developing the show, and since I was already in the Discovery Family of networks, they just called me up and I said yes, immediately.
It’s a show that I’m very, very proud of. It’s a show that is very close to my heart. It was an amazing experience to get to reunite those people. There were moments in each episode where you absolutely could not fake. When I would tell the person who I was helping out, that I had found who they were looking for, and their emotional reaction. Even more significant was the moment when they saw each other again for the first time. There’s a level of a heartfelt genuineness in Long Lost Family that I’ve never seen in any other show before. It just fills me the pride to have been a part of those episodes. And you know, I’m hoping that maybe one day, they’ll bring it back.
D! You have a very busy schedule. How do you maintain work and home life balance?
CJ: I try to get the most out of every day. I’d like to get up really early in the morning and do my stuff around the house. We just had a baby four months ago, so obviously that’s my primary focus these days.
You use the word balance and that’s really what it’s all about. You can’t take time for granted. You have to really make the most out of everyday and every opportunity. When I’m home I’m fully into being home.
I’m taking it a little bit easier and spending more time at home, which is great, but always looking for new work opportunities. The balance is very good right now. I’ve got a great balance between the two and every night I’m on the road, I make sure to FaceTime with the family, so I feel like I’m there a little.
D! What happened to your ‘68 Plymouth GTX that Chip Foose did the design work, and then Graveyard Carz did the restoration?
CJ: I bought that GTX from one of my best friends in the early 2000s, maybe late 90s. I had that car for a long time.
In 2005 Foose did a little freshening up with a new paint job and he put his wheels on it and the brakes upgraded to Baer.
One day when I was using it for a photo shoot, one of the gas lines came loose and dumped gas all over the hot intake and it lit on fire. Fortunately, the paint was not damaged but all the rubber and things like that under the hood melted. It was a mess. So, I was thinking to myself, you know, what do we do here? Do we try to clean this up or do we do something a little bit more?
Mark Worman who owns Graveyard Carz had done a swap on a Super Bee. So, I called them up and said, do you think that you guys would want to do a 392 swap in my GTX and maybe they could make an episode out of it? And he thought about it and said, yeah, I think we’d definitely be interested. Mopar Performance was good enough to donate the engine for us.
We then put the car across the auction block for charity in January of 2022 The GTX sold at Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale for $300,000 with all the proceeds going to the C4 Foundation.
The C4 Foundation is an organization down in San Diego that provides a facility for Navy Seals to either prepare for deployment or convalesce there to get their heads right when either coming or going from deployment.
The guy that bought the car actually owns Radford Racing School in Arizona. After he bought the car, he became a friend of mine. I was able to actually see the car out there quite a bit.
A couple of months ago, he called me up and he said, this car is just sitting here at the Radford Racing School. What if I sent it back to you, you drove it for a little bit, and then we’ll put it through the auction circuit again and get another charity donation?
That sounded like a great plan. So I’ve actually have the car back with me now and I’m having a blast driving it.
Probably early in 2023 we will once again put it up for auction. It’s become kind of a symbol for charity and working with the military. I do a lot of work with the USO. I host a show for them called the MVP, (Military Virtual Programming) that we started during the pandemic. When we couldn’t do any USO tours, so people are doing them over the internet now. It’s turned out to be a great success.
I’m happy because I get to drive my GTX again and I’m very happy that we’re going to be able to make another contribution to the C4 Foundation.
D! It’s obvious your car guy. What else are you driving these days?
CJ: Well, my collection is pretty small these days. It’s down to just the GTX, the 911, and we have an Acura MDX as our family car. I had a Jeep Gladiator for a little bit, but that was a little difficult to get in and out of with the baby and everything so we traded that in.
The car that I regret letting get away, is my ‘87 Grand National. I had it for about two years. That’s the one car that I purchased at auction and I got a great deal on it. I sold it two years later and made about, 10% on the car. I thought was amazing that we made money on the car, but nowadays, those are going for forty-thousand and more. I wish that I still had it. That was my dream car when I was in high school. But I got a lot of enjoyment out of that car for the two years that I owned it.
It just comes down to the problem of garage space. I only have a two-car garage. I had to prioritize what cars go in there and of course, the Porsche and the GTX get top billing when it comes to what cars are in the garage.
D! Your current projects are the Mecum auctions, Zero-60 Podcast, ambassadorships for Hagerty, Griot’s Garage, Wrench, Lemon Squad, and Radford Racing School.
What’s next for you?
CJ: I’ve got a few shows that are in development at Time, Warner Brothers, and Discovery. I’m hoping that one of those is going to make it to the air.
I think what I’m concentrating on most now is Mecum. We booked about ten of those a year. I just got home from Orlando and I’ve got Harrisburg Pennsylvania coming up. The second week of August, I’m very excited to be going up to car week at the Monterey peninsula as a representative of Haggerty. We’re going to be driving a caravan of Lotuses up there from the Peterson Auto Museum. It’s such a beautiful drive. I’ll be up there all week with Haggerty hosting an event for them. You can find that on Motor Trend. It’s such a fun week. If you’ve never been to the Concours d’Elegance, I highly recommend it.
D! Chris, we really appreciate your time. Good luck with your new baby, and everything else that you have on your plate now and in the future. It’s been a pleasure.
CJ: I appreciate it, man. Right back at you.
D! Chris will be Grand Marshal at this year’s Cruisin’ For A Cure one-day charity car show at the OC Fair & Event Center on September 24, 2022 in Costa Mesa, California.
Join us and be a part of “The car show that can save your life”.
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