There are many designers whose work can be spotted with ease from distance – shared traits, from top-drawer marques to more mundane models, betray their origins.
Yet in 1970, among a flurry of designs for De Tomaso for Ghia, Tom Tjaarda created the Pantera. It was both angular and sweeping; aggressive without being overbearingly so. Like a Maserati or Lamborghini but somehow better proportioned.
Beneath Tjaarda’s lines it was the work of Gianpaolo Dallara, with American V8 power right behind the driver’s ear courtesy of Ford.
Two years later, in 1972, the man born in Motor City created a car whose lineage stretches unbroken to today: the Ford Fiesta. Two cars at either end of just about any automotive spectrum you care to concoct, yet they are forever linked by their maker.
The connection along with Tjaarda was Ford, which owned 80% of Carrozzeria Ghia after bailing out Alejandro de Tomaso when Ghia and Ford combined for the Pantera.
The ‘Wolf’ was Tjaarda’s design proposal for Project Bobcat, which was intended to take The Blue Oval into the blossoming small-car market head-on with the ground-breaking Mini and Honda Civic. The Fiesta, as Henry Ford II would dictate it be called, needed to match them and space efficiency was everything. The small wheelbase, just 90 inches, was aided by a transverse engine that reduced the size of the engine bay and made more space for the incumbents.
Today, like the Mini and the Civic, the Fiesta is rather larger – and has sold well into the millions. Unlike the Pantera, which reached a still creditable 7000 or so.
You’ll find an example of each of Tjaarda’s handiwork in the Family Ties display at the Scramble on Sunday 9 October, thanks to Micky Calcott and Richard Wollocombe.
Try and spot the similarities…