LAS VEGAS -- If Ford wants street credibility, it sure found the right guy to team up with.

Starting in 2007, Ford dealerships will sell special edition models designed by Chip Foose, considered among the industry's sharpest independent designers.

Ford officials declined to estimate how many Foose vehicles will be sold through dealerships. The first vehicle Foose will modify will be a F-150 truck, said Robert Parker, Ford brand car marketing manager. Ford would not say which other vehicles might be on the list, but Foose said he would "love to refine and play with a Fusion."

The California designer is known for million-dollar one-off creations that have won "America's Most Beautiful Roadster" award six times. Obviously, the Ford versions will not cost as much.

"The vehicles will deliver on the Foose DNA without diluting the Ford promise of being affordable," Parker said in an interview at the SEMA show here

The vehicles will be assembled partly on Ford assembly lines as well as by third-party manufacturers, similar to Ford's arrangement with Carroll Shelby for the special edition Mustangs bearing his name.

"If Chip wants to add a carbon fiber skull cap, then we can do that on the Ford line," Parker said. "But if he wants to have special Foose wheels on the car, then that's something that will have to be done by Chip's builder."