THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY —
TOM MORLAND PART TWO
In Issue No. 154, we wrote about Tom Morland and his achievements in building several kit cars such as the De Tomaso, Firebird Trans Am, and Corvette replicas. Since then, we’ve had the pleasure of catching up with Tom in Christchurch, where he is still living. We’re pleased to say that he did not die in 2015, as we reported in our original article. He was actually very sick at the time, and a friend of ours saw a death notice in the newspaper that she mistakenly thought was his. Tom’s operation was a success — but he did withdraw from the public eye to make a full recovery, and has continued to keep a relatively low profile ever since. These days, Tom is feeling great. When we met him recently, he started telling us about his next project — the one that got away. The Firebird, De Tomaso, and Corvette were all successful kit cars by New Zealand standards. Riding this wave of success, Tom decided to have another go, this time with a Lamborghini replica. At the time, Tom was already working 14-hour days. When asked why, with such a heavy workload, he started a fourth car, he said, “It just sort of happened.” For Tom, getting a kit into production was always more interesting than the bread-and-butter effort of selling it. He enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of building a new car. The fourth car we are referring to is the Lamborghini LP500S that never got past the body stage. After making the moulds and pulling out the first body, Tom’s next job was to produce a chassis and an interior for the car. The chassis was going to be an adapted version of his De Tomaso Pantera chassis. At the time, Tom was flat out keeping up with orders for his other kits, and he was never able to find the time needed to get the Lamborghini production ready. A large amount of work had already been done to modify the new chassis, but, finally, after a serious back injury and other previously mentioned health issues, Tom realized the car would never be developed into a production kit car.
Despite the replica still needing a lot of development, some people were very keen for Tom to sell them a body. Naturally, he was cautious about selling a body to people who would not be able to finish the car; they had to prove that they were up to the task before he would let them take a body away. Eight bodies were pulled from the moulds before Tom stopped production of all his cars. Tom still owns the moulds for the Pantera and the Lamborghini. He also owns two Panteras. One is finished, but he is upgrading it with new brakes, etc.; the other is three-quarters finished and was one of the last steel-space-frame cars built. Beside these sits a Pantera body tub constructed using a combination of Kevlar, carbon fibre, and high-density foam — a mix of materials that Tom pioneered with the last few De Tomaso bodies. The carbon-fibre / Kevlar tub section negates the need for a steel chassis, as it is very strong and extremely light. On Tom’s to-do list is Lamborghini body number eight, the final one he produced in 1990 before he closed up his business. Tom regrets that he never built his own Lamborghini Countach, and, now, with the possibility of time on his hands, he plans to go back and actually do so. If he decides to construct a new body, the body tub will be made using the Kevlar-and-carbon-fibre mix that he used on the last Panteras. Any cars that Tom builds in the future will be sold only in turnkey form and are likely to be built as track cars — although road cars are always a possibility. We’re sure all our readers will want to join us in wishing Tom the best of luck in completing a project that started life 28 years ago. Once again, our apologies to Tom and his family for stating in print that he’d passed. We assure you, he’s alive and well!
THEY HAD TO PROVE THAT THEY WERE UP TO THE TASK BEFORE HE WOULD LET THEM TAKE A BODY AWAY