SPA News Autumn 2012 - Shell UK

FEATURE ARTIcLE
ThE DEviL'S iN ThE DETAiL
Tommy Thomson, ex-
Shell driver, combines the
practical and the artistic
in his hobby: painting
vintage cars, lorries and
tankers... Ardella Jones
catches up with him
As a schoolboy, Tommy Thomson liked to
watch the big lorries thundering along the
A73 North Road near his home in New
Mains outside Glasgow. In the summer,
he would note down the registrations and
models, and sketch the huge vehicles in
notebooks his grandma bought for him;
during the harsh Scottish winters, he would
colour in his drawings. He won first prize
for art every year at school but when he
left, he became a motor mechanic rather
than an artist.
At 17, Tommy passed his driving test first
time and his dad bought him a sporty little
1949 MG TC Midget in order to stop him
riding a motorbike. However, Dad was
unable to stop Tommy flirting with danger
one way or another and the MG got him
hooked on motor-racing. Tommy graduated
to an E-type Jaguar and soon held the lap
record at Inglestone, the local circuit.
'I got it all wrong at first...
I wanted to learn to mix
colours properly'
When Tommy married in 1974, his wife
Nancy, who was soon expecting their
daughter, wanted him to take up a less
dangerous pastime than racing so Tommy
bought a vintage lorry and started restoring
it. By the 1990s, he had eight lorries in
various stages of restoration, and two
platform A frame drawbar trailers which fit
on the back of the lorry like a flatbed with
14 | SPA NEWS
1500cc
a turntable. Unfortunately, the firm that
rented him storage premises went into
receivership and he had to sell the lot.
Tommy exhibited his vintage vehicles at
shows and rallies and remembers vividly
taking part in the North of England Run.
"We'd had a battery problem on the way
down from Scotland and did a makeshift
repair," Tommy explains. "But overnight the
acid leaked and ate into the metal. As the
local mayor raised the flag to begin the
rally, the battery, which was in a box on
the side of the chassis, exploded. Bits flew
everywhere! To get it started again, we had
to use an old-fashioned starting handle
turned by pulling a rope. I asked the mayor
to help us pull but he declined. Luckily, an
American film crew from The Teamsters'
Union were there and got stuck in. The
Americans had never seen anything like
these old style models."
Tommy continued to indulge his love of motor
cars and restoration. When he was 65, he
began building his last car – a one-off
special: "It had been a 1932 Riley Monaco
9 saloon," says Tommy, "but I fitted an alloy
body, added a bigger 2.5 litre engine, a
3.5 diff and new wheels." Mrs Thomson was
Box Truck Steel Race Car
not entirely happy with the Riley, which
attracted the competitive attention of boy
racers. "I was faster than them," says Tommy
with some satisfaction, "and the wife knew
I couldn't resist a challenge. She thought the
Riley was beautiful but dangerous, and she
kept waiting for the police to tell her they'd
found me upside down, crashed in a park!"
Ironically, it was an accident on a quiet road
one summer's day caused by another driver,
which ended Tommy's career with Shell. "I
was paralysed down one side for 18
months," says Tommy, "and Shell gave me
medical retirement in 2002." He also had
to give up his International Racing Licence
and sell his beloved car when heart surgery
eventually clipped his wings.
Mrs Thomson can't get away from her
husband's obsession with motor vehicles,
however, as her living room is adorned with
portraits of lorries. "She likes them," Tommy
assures me. “There's one of am Armstrong
Saurer, a Swiss-made lorry from around
1934 which had an air brake system ahead
of its time. Then there's a painting of an eight
wheel 1948 Atkinson with a drawbar trailer
and one of an early 1950s six-wheeler
Leyland Comet, the official lorry of the
United Africa