Sounds like you had great timing with Tom, Ed. So did I when I met him on my first night back in Los Angeles in 2009, with the Pangea in tow. I would have loved to see the TII in process and on his wall so he could see it and "live around it." That was his MO even when I knew him. Did he leave the CAD drawing of the first TIIII tub on the wall when you would visit the Westwood apartment? Most of the time he would take it down for guests. Tom was also very sentimental about his mother, who had taken his artistic genius and made it profitable when she went to Italy to help out in the sixties. Was she in Italy when you met Tom, Ed? The apartment in Westwood was hers before she passed away. Tom was devastated and kept the apartment for sentimental reasons. Few knew that it was a one bedroom apartment with five Ferrari engines including the McQueen V12 in that bedroom. In the bedroom were things like the production molds I had made and countless finished parts Tom protected like a watch dog. Your visit to Tom's was in his earlier stages of gaining the respect of Enzo. This photo of Enzo with Tom was taken after the Thomassima II was completed and was on Enzo's test track down the street from Tom's apartment. The piece of paper in Enzo Ferrari's hand is his direct phone number which he told Tom to use when he needed something. This was after speaking with Tom in Italian for 45 minutes while his car was on the track being tested that day. Enzo told Tom, roughly quoted, "all of the people at Ferrari are full of themselves and wont help you, so call me directly when you need something." The language Tom and Enzo used was more colorful. I have included the back of the business card I designed for Tom, by his side, while he told me the whole story. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well, I let the cat out of the bag at lunch yesterday with some friends of Tom's, so next I'll share with my FChat friends. What year did you and Tom go over the Nembo records Wayne? Turns out in 2011, while we were working away, I asked Tom, "so what happened to the lost Nembo? " He said it was shipped off to Lebanon and never seen again. I pushed the point of preserving Tom's work, as part of my job and also just because we all should see it. My "badgering" lit the candle on Tom and his quest began. It didn't take long and the lost Nembo was recovered in 2011. You will see it again.
The only thing you know for certain is he told you nothing conclusive. Otherwise it is purely conjecture on your part, Wayne. Tom was much smarter than you seem give to credit to. Why would he tell you all of his inner dealings? What was the intent of your meeting with Tom (how did this serve him?)? He was so much smarter than you folks would ever know. But, isn't that half of the trick? I am getting a laugh out of this and I know Tom is.
True. At some point, Joshua transitioned from honoring and remembering Tom Meade (the spirit and purpose of the original thread), to documenting his own "Thomassima IIII" project. I've split off the discussion of his project into a separate thread and placed it in the appropriate Special Projects & Concept Cars forum: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/special-projects-concept-cars/493704-thomassima-iiii-project.html
And now that this has returned to being a thread about Tom and his cars, I would like to post an update to my comments above: I found my notes. When I met with Tom in 2005-2006, he told me that the car was based on an SWB Berlinetta, but he had the chassis number recorded as 1707GT, which is a 250 GT PF Coupe. Back in 1996, Tom told Marc Sonnery that the chassis number was 2707GT, a 250 GTE. As the person now claiming ownership of the car appears to have a one-off body built on 250 GTE chassis 2707GT, I'm inclined to believe that Tom was mistaken when he told me 1707GT, as well as when he remembered that the car was based on an SWB Berlinetta. Marc most likely received the correct information from Tom back in 1996.
Bravo Wayne! This thread evolved to be more about the efforts of Mr. Lange. I have nothing against the project, but have felt it should be down in the special projects concepts section for some time. It certainly has nothing to do with Vintage Ferrari. Good decision.
On that note......... A few months ago, the shop redoing the paint/body on the Boxer and much of the re-restoration of the 400GT told me of an incoming project of some significance, vaguely implying that it MAY, or may NOT be in the Ferrari world, but that he couldn't tell me exactly WHAT until it arrived........ and I was there at the appointed time. I was assured that it would be worth fighting the traffic to get there. If you made it through that long sentence, you're as hooked as I was, so hang on. As time wore on, the date became slightly more defined, but I still didn't know when, because other delays were preventing its delivery, and Patrick himself cold only narrow it down to the week it was to arrive - about two weeks prior to the projected date itself....and the day was bumped a couple of times in THAT week, into the next. I had mostly stopped asking by that point, though. On the morning of July 8th, Patrick called to tell me that "The Car" was finally there, and I had two days before tear-down to see it whole, and that I could bring one, or maybe two people. Still wouldn't tell me what it was, or even if it was a Ferrari. Part of me was hoping for a McLaren F1. After some pressing, I was told that whomever I brought should have a similar (or greater) appreciation for Ferrari history and significant cars. We would be allowed to take pictures, but couldn't publish them or publicize that the car was here. Three people came to mind - Unfortunately, only one got back to me prior to my trip to the shop. Shawn Richard, our local FCA President, met me later that afternoon at the shop. What was there, in the metal in front of us, was the Thomassima II, about to get a bit of a corrective make-over prior to shipping to Concorso Italiano at the end of July. We've now been cleared to post about the car (I'd planned to do this last week, so I apologize for my tardiness), so following are some of the pics from that day. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's hard to believe just how dead-sexy curvy the body is in pics, as well as how impossibly claustrophobic the cabin is. Brings to mind the classic "Dating a Supermodel Paradox" in a slightly different way, even beyond the typical "Nearly Unusable Exotic"cliche. I'd love to see the lights bouncing off of its curves in my own garage, even if it was too torturing to drive much. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Tight fit, even for me. It would be an absolutely beautiful view over the fenders, though, appropriately). The side window was literally about 2" from my temple. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
What starts as the pointy end........ Image Unavailable, Please Login .....gains a bulge.... Image Unavailable, Please Login (the door is open, btw) .....evolving and flowing into a collection of curves...... Image Unavailable, Please Login ......with more bulges upon those curves.... Image Unavailable, Please Login .....and it all works together beautifully, as the first pics show. Like the flares over the wheel openings, the engine hump is curves upon curves.
Curves upon curves upon curves - and one word comes to mind: Flowing. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Beneath the Flow..... Image Unavailable, Please Login There are a few welds in there, if you look closely enough. The Push behind the Flow.... Image Unavailable, Please Login ...sitting in.....
.....one of Alessandro deTomaso's ex-race car chassis. Image Unavailable, Please Login .....which I doubt EVER looked so good. (I could be wrong, though ) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Consider that my 512BBi is set to about 42" at its rooftop (and with drivetrain out, is maybe 44" from "ground" right now), and both cars are on wheel dollies - effectively, on "relative even ground" to each other. It's also noticeably wider than the Boxer. Image Unavailable, Please Login Even sitting on the dollies, the top of the Thom II is about the height of the bottoms of the 400GT's side windows, which isn't on dollies. A surprise, for sure, and definitely worth the traffic. A big thanks to Patrick and Tim for allowing me the opportunity to visit with this iconic rolling art.
The original posts/images have been temporarily hidden from view at the OP's request. They will be reinstated following the public reveal of the car at Concorso Italiano on August 15, 2015.
My apologies, everyone - It seems that permission to post the pics was given prematurely. As Wayne said, the posts will return after its reveal at Concorso. And yeah, the car is strikingly gorgeous.
It was there, prominently displayed: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Those look like Borrani knock-offs. Originally, Tom had some cast up with his name on the centers. Picky, picky, picky.
