SEPTEMBER 2023

FEATURE
Some of Thamer’s design sketches and the Chevy HHR, top right.
HANNONA continued from page 20
an art portfolio, which he had not
much experience with before. He went
to the admissions office and was eventually
accepted. The program at CCS
was intense and difficult, with many
students dropping off in the middle
because of the pressure or the cost.
His first challenge was to pass his
freshman year, which he said was a
“tryout” for the real program, which,
according to Thamer, ranks number 2
in the nation.
Thamer was behind his cohorts
because he spent a semester getting
caught up on other classes. Even as the
dean told him he couldn’t make it into
the program, he was accepted to the
next three years of the car design program.
Its exclusivity is justified by the
lack of jobs available in that field. Only
a few thousand people in the world get
to design cars for a living.
There were 20 students in the program
to start, but that drops all the
way down to single digits in some cases.
“I used to pull all-nighters once or
twice a week,” Thamer claimed. “They
want to make sure you’re fueled by
passion.”
Thankfully, Thamer lived at home
in Warren while he was studying. He
claimed the entire basement as his
workshop and had a scholarship to
cover most of the costs; his parents
picked up the remainder. At the end
of his tenure, his story came full circle
as he participated in the senior showcase,
flaunting his car models. He
made the list of almost all the companies
that came to the show and had
tons of offers from companies like Nissan,
BMW, Ford, General Motors, and
Chrysler. According to Thamer, GM
was the most enthusiastic about him,
and he saw a lot of growth opportunity
in the company as they had many
studios worldwide, so he took the job.
That was 22 years ago.
“When I come to Detroit on business,
I don’t even get a hotel. I just stay with
my parents,” he said. “That’s how close
it is. It’s crazy how close my parents live
to the headquarters, like less than a
mile. It’s serendipity, I guess. There are
not many places to work, so very few
people are from here. The car design
community is very international.”
When Thamer designs a car, it takes
about 2-4 years to reach production.
His first design was one you’ll still see
on the road today: the Chevrolet HHR,
or “Heritage High Roof,” a retro-style
five-passenger wagon modeled after
the 1947-53 Chevy Suburban. The car
has a classic feel with modern amenities.
The HHR saw over 500,000 sales
in its lifetime and, at its peak in 2008,
ranked #36 in vehicle sales in the United
States. Not bad for a first try.
A large part of the car design business
is patience and persistence.
While Thamer finished this design
before the end of 2003, it was still not
produced and sold until 2005, and
it didn’t gain serious traction until a
year later. By then, he had moved onto
bigger and better things. He was restationed
in California at GM’s advance
design center. “On the advance team,
you work on things that are far term,
the cars you’d see in showcases or
auto shows,” Thamer said. Many of the
projects he works on for the advance
team are top-secret.
This was a quick move for someone
who only joined the company in 2001,
but Thamer actively sought out traveling
and new experiences. He was only
there for two years when he made a
bigger move to Brazil. By the time he
got there, the HHR, his first official design,
was in its first year of production.
Thamer had long felt the pull of
travel, and this experience helped
scratch the itch. During the time he
was there, Brazil was an emerging
car market, and Thamer helped build
GM’s design studio there with the
ultimate goal of establishing a selfsustaining
design community. “We
had a low budget, so it’s a really different
place than I was coming from,”
he said. “We had to think more practically
and cost-efficiently and in terms
of production.” Often, Brazilian factories
would receive leftover parts from
Europe, which made for an interesting
design challenge.
During his stay, Thamer lived in
Sao Paolo, which was the third biggest
city in the Americas after New York and
Los Angeles, and has now surpassed
both. GM gave him a bulletproof car.
The office was far from where he lived,
and driving in Brazil was nothing like
he’d ever seen. “It’s the most dangerous
thing you can imagine,” he said.
“There’s a bunch of tight corners and
turns and it’s very fast. I had serious
anxiety every time I had to drive.”
Thamer loved the city culturally.
“It was a big city, and there’s all these
little pockets of beauty. You can drive
about 60 miles to the beach too,” he
said. “The food was the best part. Experiencing
the barbecue for the first
time was great, where they just bring
you meat over and over.”
HANNONA continued on page 24
22 CHALDEAN NEWS SEPTEMBER 2023