Back in 1986, before he was one of the hottest designers in the United States, Freeman Thomas gave a ride to a guy he barely knew. It was winter, and Thomas was living in Germany. "I remember thrashing through these narrow, twisted roads," says Grant Larson, who is now a friend and colleague of Thomas. "He had a little Fiat Uno, and he was scaring the hell out of me. He was hammering around these curves, these narrow streets. I was fresh from America, where the streets are wider, of course, and the cars don't handle as well as European cars."
Thirteen years later, Freeman Thomas is doing the same thing, again with someone he hardly knows. This time, he's doing it on a sunny, cool afternoon in the suburbs of Detroit. He's slamming through turns, using all five gears, dodging slow movers -- providing a breathtaking, and breathless, tour of the landscape. One landmark flashes into view, and before you can absorb it or appreciate it, Freeman Thomas is downshifting and roaring off to the next one.
The Detroit performance is even more remarkable than the German one, however, because Freeman Thomas is taking this ride without the benefit of a car. He's sitting at a weathered picnic table behind a small Catholic church. And his brain is moving so fast that his mouth can hardly keep up.
In one hour, Thomas manages to connect the show "I Love Lucy"; the American Dream; Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house; Alfred Hitchcock; and the peasant cooking of the Italian countryside. He connects them not only to each other but also to the thing that is most important to Freeman Thomas: cars.
Freeman Thomas has designed two of the most distinctive cars of the '90s. He is codesigner of VW's New Beetle. He also designed the Audi TT -- a sports car of such purity that a New York Times critic called it "historically significant" and nominated it for "car of the century."
For ordinary people, the Beetle and the TT share a slightly different quality: It's hard to look at either one without smiling -- and without itching to slide behind the wheel. That's no accident. For a guy as cheerfully obsessed with cars as Freeman Thomas, the journey really is just as important as the destination. And it is a great sin to create a dull ride.
This summer, Thomas made a move that may result in the addition of some distinctive shapes to American roads: He jumped from VW/Audi to DaimlerChrysler. As head of advanced product design, Thomas is in charge of three U.S. design studios. His main job is to keep DaimlerChrysler's American cars from being dull. This afternoon, Thomas has been out driving through the streets of Detroit in a Plymouth Prowler, a low-slung concept car that is little more than fenders, seats, growling motor, and attitude. The Prowler is every hot rod ever built, distilled into a single package.
"So I'm driving over here today in the Prowler, and I pass a car. There's a man driving, a kid in the front passenger seat, and two more kids in the back. They see the Prowler, and they grin and give me a thumbs-up," says Thomas. "And I give them a thumbs-up back. You only get one life; this life is not a rehearsal. So chances are, you want to have fun. You still want to act like a child. That spirit is a frame of mind, not an age. And the automobile gives you a chance to have an adventure every day. Say you drive 20 minutes to work every day. Your commute could be totally pragmatic, but it doesn't have to be. Having a really nice car is like wearing a really nice suit. It's like a role you play -- a role you get to play. Who doesn't want a thumbs-up experience?"
What would the 1950s have been like in America without the automobile? The automobile created restaurants, fashions, television programs. It gave us style. It gave us attitude.
Driving across America is an adventure -- the old "Route 66" idea.
If you stop, there's a TV in the motel room where you stay. And on the TV, there's a show about people and cars.
The stories on TV are about American life. They are optimized reflections of American life.
Look at a show like "I Love Lucy." Remember the episodes about the big car trip to California from New York? The car is there.
The late 1990s have not been a fecund era of car design. If anything, there has been a numbing convergence across brands and price ranges into a handful of looks. At a glance, it is difficult to distinguish a Honda Civic from a BMW, an Acura from an Audi, a Volvo from a Saab, a Mercedes SUV from a Lexus SUV from a Kia SUV. Infiniti? Century? Catera? If you've spent $40,000 on your car, shouldn't someone be able to tell?
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