[DeTomaso] A really cool present - the Tjaarda Bugatti proposal is in my hands!

[Charles McCall]

Hi all

 

Last weekend I stopped by the house of a friend of mine, David Rodriguez. 

 

David is an extremely talented artist who uses his gift only in his spare
time as a hobby (he earns his living as an engineer). He enjoys tracking
down and drawing prototype cars, limited production cars, or cars that never
even saw the light of day but only existed on paper or in the mind of some
designer. 

 

There is an article written by David in the latest POCA profiles, and one of
his drawings of what was to be the new Vallalunga, had Alejandro held on a
little longer (and a quite attractive car, imo). 

 

Anyway, David wrote to Tom Tjaarda and they have exchanged several e-mails
over the past few years. When the Bugatti design popped up on the PIBB a few
weeks ago, I sent a picture to David and he told me the following:-snip-

Charlie, that's my own illustration of Tjaarda's Bugatti EB110 proposal.

You surely remember there was a Bugatti re-incarnation in Italy which lasted
from 1987 to 1996.

It was a one man's dream; Romano Artioli, Suzuki importer for Italy and
ex-Ferrari dealer in Germany -he lost Ferrari's favour once he began his new
venture. Ferrari too would pressure banks around not to loan money to
Bugatti, while also pressing specialists suppliers not to work for Bugatti
if they still wanted to be favoured by them-.

Artioli hired Gandini for designing the car; first car was very
dissapointing and a second design was requested to Gandini again, but a
battle for some details provoked that Gandini left the project, which was
internally re-styled at Campogalliano -where Bugatti was based-.

But Artioli was still dissatisfied, although now he was urged to go on with
the car the way it was if he wanted something to unveil in Paris for the
110th anniversary of Ettore Bugatti's birth. So he asked Tom Tjaarda to
suggest a new nose for the car. Tjaarda made a number or proposals for
restyling the nose, and during one of his visits to Campogalliano, Artioli
asked him to doodle some complete shapes of what his ideas for a Bugatti
were. Those sketches and doodles all were left at Campogalliano. In 2006 I
asked Tjaarda to try to remember and recreate what he had done for Bugatti.
In 2008 I finally had from him 5 A3 format drawings of Bugatti shapes which
recreated those he had done many years back. And so I made the corresponding
illustraton, which is in the Tjaarda publicity image you sent me yesterday."
-eos

 

Anyway, after my visit David insisted that I leave with one of the sketches
Tom made. I scanned it, although it was too large to fit on the scanner bed,
so I had to scan it in halves:

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=26806

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=26809

 

David's drawing which he sent to Tom may be found here:

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=26812

 

All this to say that I'm pretty psyched to have an original Tjaarda drawing,
which will now be framed and hung somewhere on the DeTomaso Wall. 

 

Cheers!

 

Charles McCall

1985 DeTomaso Pantera GT5-S #9375

"Raising Pantera Awareness Across Europe"

 <http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=2323>
http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=2323