Tom Tjaarda

Tom Tjaarda pronounced JAR-DUH is an American born in Detroit, grew up in Birmingham MI the son of a famous engineer John Tjaarda who worked for various automakers and automaker suppliers like Briggs body building Co. John Tjaarda at one time built a prototype for the Ford Zephyr, rear engined, and it was seen by Dr. Porsche before the war who went back to Germany and basically miniturized the design. Tom Tjaarda was an architecture student, and wanted to impress a girl at college sohe applied for a car design scholarship to Italy and won the job, at Pininfarina. He did two Ferraris at Pininfarina, the 330GT four headlamp version and the 365GT California spyder, of which they made only 14. He also did the one off Corvette Rondine coupe, the Pininfarina 230SL and several Lancias and Fiats, the most numerous of which was the Fiat 124 spyder. He then went to Ghia where he took over the design helm when Giugiaro left and it was there he did the Pantera for DeTomaso, and later the Deauville and Longchamps. One obscure car he did for Ghia was a rebodied Mangusta with a Serenissima V8 for Count Volpi. He has been a free lance designer since then with contracts from firms like Rayton-Fissore for a SUV called the LaForza and varioius one off projects from old names trying to get revived like Isotta Fraschini. He often comes to the Concorso Italiano and has been a judge at Pebble Beach. He is an affable fellow, if you ever get to meet him and a good source of history on Italian postwar design for Americans because he speaks English so well.