Tom Meade: Thomassima Supercar_update

I see fragrances of a GTO Series 2, California Spider, 250 SWB, 275 GTB, others. But as whole cars they’re not any of those. Looking at Meade’s cars, the overall effect would be as if Ferrari were to add extra dashes of spices and herbs to the sauce, letting it sit overnight for that “2nd day taste,” resume baking the next day, producing a more flavorful car, with nuances overall to dramatically alter the visual experience.

I am impressed on many levels certainly, but the main thing going through my mind is the sense of respect and humility I am feeling upon seeing the legacy that this man has created. I’ve met many visual artists, painters, movie people, musicians, some of my childhood heroes –but never a living legend such as this man. I can’t stop repeating myself with saying “wow” and “amazing.”

“I learned all of this the hard way --the very hard way. Some of the things I have lived through would leave your mouth hanging open. It has taken me 50 years to learn how to make the new Thomassima.”

When he says this to me I am again taken to another level of thinking, like a slow bullet entering my skull. The cars, the coffee, the afternoon sun, the level of design, the memories and times of this man in Italy somewhat become my own –it all begins to penetrate as I speak:

“You are one of those types of people, a Clint Eastwood type. You’re much less mainstream, in relative obscurity today… you are a living legend, an icon.”

He appears happy to hear this, somewhat surprised, perhaps, to hear me assess him in this way. And I continue:

“Because you create boutique products, highly specialized niche products, exotic cars, only true connoisseurs will know who you are. I must be one of those people now because I was lead to this.”

“The Thomassima is more known than you think it is,” he assures me.

As a draftsman myself, a largely self-taught storyboard artist for Hollywood movies and tv commercials, I am well aware of many areas of design and art that are not really my niche. Insofar as cars are concerned, I am merely a bright-eyed hobbyist at best, having drawn original car designs only very infrequently.

And drawing something already made, as I have done hundreds of times, if not thousands of times, will never qualify me as an automotive designer. That is for rich kids who go to places like Art Center or somewhere else to learn industrial design. Worse, that is a special talent, perhaps, that I may not even possess. Only lucky people end up as car designers.

Tom responds: “Art Center creates cookie cutter students who make all the same kinds of designs. They’re trained to become the same.”

While chewing food as he says this, I stop chewing to laugh with the food in my mouth. I feel uplifted and in accord with his thinking. It’s easy and a release for me to assume that attitude, being someone who never went to brand name schools. But the weight behind Tom saying it brings a fresh validity to the statement.

Regardless, with no formal training in anything really, I often feel pathetically out of my depth when I attempt to render an original car design. At best I feel like a fake. And the feeling is only amplified upon seeing Tom’s cars. But, alas, he wasn’t formally trained either. Neither was Enzo. And that is somewhat unbelievable when looking at what they can/did create, and what Tom has yet to do.

Whatever fantasies I may have entertained long ago of designing cars, of being part of that culture in any way, have long since faded with age –but have they really? For all the times I’ve imagined being behind the wheel in a car chase, drawing the scene by placing myself in the driver’s seat, by collecting a long list of speeding tickets, of going to hundreds of car shows, import car events, I never crossed over into actually creating the fast cars to be admired and collected. In all honesty to myself, I am no one special as I have been, and am, just another admirer, a consumer. But an enthusiast, nonetheless.

I’m the type of person who considers the sound of the engine to be important enough that no radio exists in the cars I own and drive. The soundtrack of the exhaust and gears changing in a tunnel, the moments that a sports car is heard above anything around, can be among the most intoxicating sounds ever experienced. In this way I consider myself a connoisseur of the sound a car makes as well as of the car itself. And as my interests and tastes in cars continue to expand, I realize that about the most uniquely exotic sound is from a Ferrari.

Other makes are different, can be nice, but nothing is really like a Ferrari’s sound. It’s a less-heard, head-turning event when you hear it. And I’ve read that it has a lot to do with Ferrari’s penchant for using flat-plane crank shafts in their engines (where the shaft lobes are directly opposed, different than the more commonly seen crank lobes offset at greater or lesser angles to each other). What results is this high-strung, high-revving, high-pitched symphony, something similar to a Formula One car.

I can only imagine what the sounds the Thomassima cars are like; better yet, how they feel to drive. I’ve been around car culture for years but only rarely have I driven the cars of my admiration. I’ve driven some, but not enough.

Amid my enjoyment of the afternoon, our meeting begins to elicit certain feelings, as if I had missed/am missing the big party, born into a time and situation that unfairly places me far and away from ever being able to grasp or have what I want.

Yet, paradoxically, I feel as if I am living in a moment of the beginning of something greater and more involving than most things I have pursued up to this time, at least in a long time. I feel that I am in an altered state, as if faerie dust is being sprinkled over the whole afternoon. It’s not just the black coffee. I feel empowered and excited, not down on myself. What I have not become, what I never had, who I am not… none of that matters. I’m not dead yet and I’m riding a wave of happy magic.

 

I still want to show Tom my drawings, even though by now I fully realize they will be seen as inferior. Not in how they are rendered per se, but in how I designed them (or lacked in the designing of them). My lack of imagination will surface immediately and I will appear orders of magnitude naïve. I begin feeling intimidated as I voice this to Tom.

I have not felt this way about something in a long time. After all I have attained and realized to a level of proficiency with my drawing skills that typically impresses others. Certainly, the rise I may get from an admirer are wonderful, even as the shelf-life of a compliment tends to be fleeting and ultimately dissatisfying.

Alas, this was to be a lesson, yet again, in humility. Literally I would soon be humiliated. And I was asking for it. I have been asking for it all my life, throughout the many chapters I have encountered. Moving out west to LA was a movement in this direction into humility and fear –headlong into a risk that guaranteed only that I would encounter unknown things. Some terrible, some great. And I am there again.

As Tom and I continue talking and sharing our lives’ stories, my role fast becomes the listener, the one absorbing from the elder statesman. What I had done up until this very hour begins to shrink and disappear into a shadow of a figment of an imaginary thought. But somehow I manage to blurt out something:

“A dream of mine, a big one, is to have a spot of land with a big house by the mountains and the ocean, with a giant multi-car garage, and a soaring workshop space where I can create giant paintings of cars and other amazing things –to have some level of renown”

“Yes, I’d like to see your drawings,” he says.

With that, reaching into my leather case, I produce 2 finished concept sketches of a red Ferrari front V12 GT, and a fantasy version of the Dino, in yellow. They were drawn last year sometime, yet I don’t bring that up as an excuse. I am already fully exposed.

He gives them a look and says in a supportive tone: “Oh I see you can use what I can show you. This first one, it kind of looks like the 599. Did you have a picture of the 599 in front of you when you drew this?”

“No, it’s from my imagination,” I say

Tom responds “One of my main weaknesses is that I love beauty, and your drawings, they’re not more beautiful than the basic Ferraris. Would someone pay for a one-off like these, over 1 or 2 or 3 million dollars, when they can buy a mass-produced Ferrari that is already as beautiful, for about 3 to $400,000? They can just go out and buy a 599.”

Looks like I will not achieve any renown with these drawings.

Likewise, I cannot say anything in rebuttal. Looks like a checkmate to me. I admit as well that I am not entirely ready to hear what he is saying as it’s something nobody has ever really told me. Being that I am prepared for criticism, I am not so crestfallen. Yet I am unsettled. I feel it in my whole body as I hear the truth being laid down about my work.

By now I have learned, from years of being exposed on jobs in Hollywood, to just take it like a man and shut up and be glad for the lesson. So I don’t take the criticism so personally as it is an excellent gift. The pangs of hurt are treasures.

“I want you to begin thinking of everything in terms of beauty,” he offers, “but these drawings do not show beautiful cars; they show nothing new or different.”

Up to this time, I never had things put to me this way… beauty? So simple yet something I honestly had either forgotten about or did not consciously implement. Whatever the case may be or might have been, I awaken out of a sort of sleep upon hearing this.

The faerie dust begins dusting the area even more; I instantly see my drawings and the photos of his cars with new eyes. The changeover is instantaneous. My drawings instantly appear as if some other person besides myself has drawn them. “I will never draw that way again,” I say to myself, assuming the position of someone different, as I am shown something greater.

Suddenly, too, I see how utterly hard it is to come up with something that looks good and new in the round, in 3D. It’s even worse because the subject matter is automotive. Everyone has an instant opinion and recognition with a car design. If something looks bad on a car, it looks really bad and is unforgiven.

He adds “Look at how your lines flow; they start and stop and have no meaning. What is this? (pointing to an area on the front of the Dino) What were you thinking? The front is too high, the fender arches don’t rise above the hood, the headlights are unattractive, the grille is too tall and flat. And there are no relationships between the different areas of the car.”

So much is wrong with what I had drawn that I sit wondering if I did anything right. Yet I don’t dwell on this. I am already a changed man and invite more.

“Do you like any of the modern Ferraris?” I ask.

“Mmm not much; I like some parts of them but generally no,” he says.

“What do you think of the 458, the new one?”

“It’s close but…. what about the tail lights? They look like… they remind me of someone with gum disease, the way they designed how the tops of the lights go into the body. They did that same thing on the 430, the receding gum tail lights.”

 

I laugh out loud when he suggests this, having never heard that before. I agree with him even though I like the 430 and 458, save for the strange headlights on the latter car.

“I don’t care for the headlights on it either, they’re too complicated,” he says.

“The 458 looks better when it’s moving. I’ve seen footage of it,” I say. He doesn’t really respond.

“The biggest problem with modern Ferraris is that the original maestro designers are gone. And the designs must appeal more and more to all kinds of people. I have freedom to make and do what I want. But I don’t compete with them on their level, so I have to go and make my cars more beautiful and of higher art. But I don’t have the billions to spend. Yet I have to try beat them. Otherwise I have nothing special; my cars will not be worth more than a Ferrari if I barely meet their standards. It’s like David and Goliath,” he says.

Agreeing, I say “You’re a boutique car maker, of the old world, how it used to be for Ferrari when they were still a company developing in a cottage industry.”

“Absolutely yes,” he agrees “it all used to be a cottage industry. Not anymore. It used to be about beauty, now it’s just about money. I never see a car which I consider especially beautiful.”

The surrealism of the day going into evening maintains a nice level of enjoyment, an altered state that I accept and have accepted. He is talking about creating a hand-built supercar without compromise to quality or performance, going directly to compete with everyone’s reputation and design aesthetic.

“The Thomassima will be entirely hand-built. The panels of the body will be hand-beaten in aluminum, with a hammer, around a mannequin (wire frame). Nobody does that anymore. It’s all computerized now.”

He continues: “Brembo is making the braking system for this car, specifically for this car. I was also going to use a Ferrari frame for it, but when I moved it was stolen. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After the incident, I teamed up with an English engineer, an absolute genius, who designed the chassis and suspension for the Aston Martin GT race car last year for LeMans.

“He’s also designed chassis and suspension for Forumla One. For the Thomassima, we have teamed up together, designing the suspension and chassis to be at the avante garde of engineering.”

At some points in hearing him speak, I am taken by the matter-of-fact delivery of what he is doing. It is not phrased in terms of “someday, I will make a car; I hope it is… blah blah blah.” There is no nonsense here. Instead, the message is clear: He has actually started building the chassis, suspension, and many of the components. In my summation, he is a doer and not just a talker.

Most people in any given business that I typically find myself interacting with never approach this kind of endeavor for any reason. Even film directors talking about what they are going to do, how they want the scene to look…. all of that is great and fun to be a part of, but in this context seems to be a more common issue.

But not this.

This is different. The scope of what Tom speaks of takes all afternoon to recount, all day to hit me as more and more is further revealed, about the Thomassima project, and about myself. Rather, I am perpetually eased into a jarring string of moments that quietly present themselves in the gentle shower of falling faerie dust.

The sun sinks lower, the chill of autumn begins to bite the air; we pack up our stuff and head out. Tom remarks on the process that he will use to create the tail lamps for the Thomassima –which will be made in Murano, Italy, from glass, not plastic. Many of the components in the Thomassima will be made of glass, but I’m not allowed to comment further.

After that visit we go to dinner. The day has tired me out, my head is reeling.

In moments between conversation, under the weight of dusk, I ask myself why am I hearing all of this? Why did I meet this person really? Certainly there are others with whom he has in close confidence to reveal secrets to instead of me (and throughout the day he does reveal such things to me that I am sworn to silence over).

In reminiscence, Tom recounts “I’m the last remaining one from that whole era. All of my contemporaries, the ones who I learned from –the Maestros-- they’re all dead.”

Certainly if such a maestro is in existence today it is indeed him. He’s been building cars and living in Italy all of his adult life –that’s 50 years, making him more Italian than American.

The solitariness of his condition makes itself very clear as I contemplate from what time in history he comes from. It’s quite a bit before my time, so this is like being in an animated time capsule. Inasmuch as I have in common with him, I am in stark contrast to him.

But the opportunity to board the train on this journey, as he builds a car in early Enzo era tradition, with the technology of tomorrow, is strangely wonderful. As he stands as a last remaining link to that distant time, I am anxious to get on with the next installment to this continuing saga…

 

Nick, I shall remind him

Chad

 

Below are listed current specs on the new Thomassima:

“Old World body outside mixed with New World technology inside,” and, according to Tom:

“I have already made a trip to Italy and contracted with my old body man who used to work for me. I’ve brought him out of retirement, so the new Thomassima should reflect the original beauty of the vintage cars.”


Engine:
-Supercharged 4-cam, front-engine V12 with titanium rods, springs, hollow valves, keepers, and locks, etc.

Gearbox:
-6 speed transaxle, custom-engineered and manufactured solely for this unit

Chassis:
-2015 technology, monocoque chassis /LeMans competition race car design and construction using many lightweight and exotic materials
-Gas tanks of hand-formed aluminum, riveted with internal fuel bladder, with “yesteryear” look as seen on the 250LM Ferrari race car
-Target weight is below 2000lbs including fuel, water, and oil

Brakes:
-Carbon-ceramic/special alloy caliper Brembo, custom application braking system, made and created especially for the Thomassima; more advanced than the braking system on the Ferrari Enzo

Suspension:
-General Formula One racing suspension, with lightweight A-arms and rear axles of carbon fiber
-Magnesium hub carriers
-Computerized electric power steering

Body:
-Hand-hammered aluminum, 1.5mm thickness –done in the old style method akin to the 315S, 335S, and pontoon Testarossas-- with carbon inner panels
-Tail lights, emblems, instrument faces, created out of glass in Murano, Italy
-Ground clearance: 3.5” front/4” rear

Wheels:
-Hand-spun 356 T6 aluminum: 20” dia/11” wide front, and 13 1/2” wide rear
-Pirelli P-Zero tires –front and rear, featuring widest street tires made

Tom commenting on the wheels: “They’re for me absolutely gorgeous and very unusual and never before seen, designed especially for the new Thomassima”


Interior:
-One-piece carbon fiber interior structure

Seats:
-Integral to chassis/fixed

Upholstery:
-On seats and kick panels only

Pedals:
-Movable hand-machined aluminum pedals that adjust and move to driver’s height, up to 6’-8”

Steering:
-Power assist via variable computerized electronic steering
-Telescopic/tilt steering column
-Ebony-covered and hand-polished steering wheel, inlaid with 40-thousand year-old mastadon fossil ivory

Dash:
-Polished/hand-shaped aluminum dashboard

Seats:
-Black leather, black suede, and polished aluminum interior highlights made in carbon fiber

Instruments:
-Created in Murano, Italy out of glass, never before seen or attempted in a car


To add, one of Tom’s admirers, a longtime wealthy Italian Ferrari collector, has so much faith in the new Thomassima project that he has stepped forward and offered to financially back the endeavor.

This allows Tom to use all of the technology and technical innovations that he has wanted to incorporate into the new supercar. These facts guarantee its fast and high-level completion.

I can well imagine that the new Thomassima, upon release, will stun the automotive world. I can’t wait to see it come to fruition, and I’m honored to be given the duty of reporting on it’s unfolding process.

 

thank you for reading; this completes the installments for "A Slice of Life..."

 

If anyone has any questions or statements they'd like to convey to Tom, or if anyone has any specific areas about his Thomassima supercars they'd like to see written about then please request at will. I will be meeting with him next week.

Not withstanding that, some updates for the status of the Thomassima IV project are forthcoming. Check back here

 

I will print out your post and have him read it (he stays away from the internet). Thanks back to you for your post.

Further inquiries are welcomed, will be seeing him this Wednesday.

 

This is mostly written/dictated directly from Tom's own words. He will take any questions you may have after reading it. Enjoy:

On the taillight assemblies:

- Thomassima IV taillight moulds are completed and were "ungodly expensive." 2 sets were made.
- It was time for something new in taillight designs, as Ferrari has used the same taillamps for over 40 years.
- Lenses and emblem inserts are composed of leaded crystal and imported from the Czech Republic.
- Tom says it is "time for a rebirth of these cars,with new ideas and new concepts which are not so far out that only madmen can interpret, he feels that the great masters of design are dead and unfortunately."

On the Thomassia IV, general:

-Thomassima IV wheels are already made with center lug knockoffs.
-Over 20 companies and 3 full time engineers are progressing on the development of the supercar.
-Thomassima IV will fit a man up to 6'-8" tall with movable pedals.
-The car has telescopic steering and tilt.
-In development and consideration is an experimental design for Hydrogen power, but the technology is being developed especially for this car. The company has already licensed the technology to NASA and the US government.
-The Thomassima V which the client wants Tom to build for the hydrogen company would be their flagship and experimental testbed and would be built for the street as a supercar, of course. A meeting with Tom and his team is scheduled for the next few days with the company's owner and patron. Needless to say, this would be an incredible step forward in supercar technology and we are all looking very much forward to it.
-The completed cars will be shown around the world at auto shows and in major auctions before the sale.


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Pioneering early career:

-"Supercar" means racing car designed for street use --very few cars qualify to be this. Most people don't know what the term "Supercar" really means and use the term incorrectly.
-Tom Meade's first supercar was the 2-seater, 350 S, chassis #3503, 1957 Maserati V-12 designed for Sterling Moss for the 1957 the Mille Miglia. Tom Meade pioneered the "Supercar."
-Tom acquired the Maserati V12 by trading a BSA motorcycle and $420 for it. Today the Maser 350 S is worth $10MM and was the only V12 Maserati 2-seater ever made to this day for racing.the car was totally redesigned for street use.
- Fantuzzi's shop is where Tom Meade prepared/repaired the body of the Maserati V-12 and slept in the shop as Fantuzzi's guest. This is how Tom learned to build exotic car bodies in aluminum.
- Over 100 race cars were junked by Maserati and left sitting around in the early days and this is how Tom got his 350 S.

-------------------

On the Thomassima II and III:

-By the way, to clarify a bit of confusion, the Thomassima II body shape was created by Tom in Tom's shop in Modena, and for which he still has the body bucks called in Italian "manichino" which is the steel wire birdcage shape. The actual Aluminium skin was pneumatically hammered out for Tom by Carrozzeria Autodromo in Modena, they were truck and bus builders. The chassis was then taken to Carrozzeria Sportscars where the body was assembled and mounted onto the car along with the windshield. The Thomassima body shapes (I II and III) were again done by Tom in his shops along with many other aluminum bodies of his design. No outside shops, or other people, were used for this.

-The Thomassima II is not a concept car "a concept car is made to entice crowds, but it will never see the street. Thomassima II was built to be a street car and driven every day."
the proper terminology is the car is considered a "ONE OFF."

-Thomassima II is now in Texas being restored after hitting a palm tree in Beverly Hills over 40 years ago.you can see the 2 videos on the internet (Youtube) of its progress.

-Thomassima III is in Tom's possession still to this day he refuses to sell it and will show both the Thomassima IV and the Thomassima III maybe even the Thomassima V if its ready the Thomassima IV is front engine and the Thomassima V will be mid engined . both will have carbon fiber tubs, and hand hammered aluminum outer body shells with inner panels in Kevlar and carbon fiber for light weight.

-By the way, Thomassima II was never built to be a p/4 knockoff but the client said that his most cherished design was the p/4. Tom said , give me the order to build you a car and I'll do my best to create a car even more beautiful than the P/4, so that's the way the Thomassima II came into being. Not one millimeter from either car is the same and his reply was that's impossible but go ahead anyway. You can see for yourself the finished product. Tom never has and never will make a copy of any Ferrari or any other car as it's against his beliefs and ethics.


On the Nembo Spyder:

-The Nembo's original owner was 5' tall. The car was custom-tailored, like an Armani suit, for the driver. The windshield therefore hits some tall people in the forehead who are 6' or over and everyone complains why did you make it like that and the reply is don't be so cheap don't buy a used "one off "have me make you a new one to your measurement like the original buyer did and then you won't have that problem.somewhere down the line someone shorter than you will maybe buy the car used and complain its too long and poorly laid out because he can't reach the pedals. So there you are don't ***** about things that are not your way in one off cars.
--------------------

General Statements:

-"It's very simple what I'm after, and that's to build beautiful cars. I'm developing the car in California because of the aerospace industry --it's all here-- I'm doing the basic mechanicals here but the body will be built in Italy."
-"I am the only one left alive of the past era in Italy that designs and builds cars. I've always said the car design in Italy was falling away with the constant death of the yesteryear masters of the most beautiful cars that were ever done on the planet".

--------------------

On Carol Shelby:

-Tom and Shelby made a handshake agreement in Italy that Tom would design and build a new Cobra It would be a mid-engined car. Then 2 weeks later, Shelby called Tom and said "Ford bought me out lock, stock, and barrel, the project is off."
-Shelby also wanted Tom to go to eastern Europe to build parts for the new Cobra.
-"Shelby One" was not so successful; just think what the new cobra would have looked like if Tom had designed it-Tom remarks on Shelby: when he gets up in the morning he doesn't use sugar in his coffee but instead uses rusty nails to sweeten it up, that's how tough he is ."

 

from:
http://www.autotitre.com/forum/rarete_only_le_retour-38539p166.htm

go to above page and click on individual photos of the past Thomassimas for larger views
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Hello, to anyone you can email Tom at: [email protected]

I cannot guarantee he will reply or if that address is still active.

 

Part 1
Tom Meade Update
From: Elysee Bakery and Café, Westwood, California.
October 2, 2011

Artwork and writing by Chad Glass

As the October morning sun permeates the Sepulveda Pass, heading south out of the valley, I find the Sunset exit and the old drive comes back: I’m going to UCLA in Westwood to visit Tom Meade. It’s long overdue as I ponder the months, as they came and went. Sparked by my recent viewing of a resurfaced “60 Minutes” segment on Tom Meade in Modena, Italy, in 1970, I am finally making time to meet him today, to resume where we had left off.

Thinking back, I believe the last entry I made about Tom Meade was on 12-29-2009. So for almost two years I have not been in touch with the man. Has it really been that long? Surely I must have spoken with him after the last entry but made no further writings. The thought of two years seems hard to believe, seeming like an eternity in this context. But life has a way of getting in the way, and things just seem to get on by.

Rising early to make the 11 am meeting, I rubber-band a couple of pens together, fetch a yellow legal pad, and a camera. I would take as many pictures as he would allow. I would write as much as he would give until I could not write anymore. Maybe a voice recorder was in order, but I did not prepare one.

Reminiscing over the last time I took this specific drive, I am taken back and begin to take personal inventory: Last time I did this I was in a sports car of my own. But it is now long totaled and sold for parts. I have since moved house, and lots of things in life have changed. But the sun is the same, and the twisting road presents the same enticing curves for a well-tuned suspension. Today I only expect good things. “Tom is still doing the car,” I say to myself. “That hasn’t changed.”

Calling ahead, as I am early to arrive, Tom answers and says he’ll be right there so come on back. Navigating the sloping narrow way around down to the back I find a spot, turn the car off, and get out. He hears me arrive and says to give him a minute.

As I’m standing by the car waiting he signals for me to come forth and I greet him on the porch. It’s good to see him again and we assume the behavior as if no time has elapsed. I’m glad to be there.

Ascending the sloping driveway we drive a short jaunt through some narrow streets and a back alley to Elysee Café, park, and order a coffee and a cappuccino. Seated prominently outside at a corner bistro table we begin our long visit among the wonderful humdrum of the in-town environs. The neighborhood humanity on parade and the bustle of a Saturday in LA frames this slice of life as I take a sip. As I’m getting the pen out to write Tom and I are already chatting:
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updated:
http://chadglass.blogspot.com/2012/01/tom-meade-update-october-2011-2012-part.html

 

http://chadglass.blogspot.com/2012/02/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html

 

http://chadglass.blogspot.com/2012/03/tom-meade-car-designer-part-iv.html