Introducing Tom Blackman, Head of Body & Paint at Charge Cars
Our Head of Body & Paint, Tom Blackman, joined Charge Cars in January of 2022. Coming from McLaren, Tom brings a wealth of experience to the team. We learn more about Tom and his Paint Team in our latest article.
I joined Charge Cars in January of 2022, coming from McLaren Automotive where I spent one month short of 20 years. I started as a paint technician on the Mercedes-Benz SLR and gradually worked my way up to become the Body & Paint Manager for the Ultimate Series. My team were responsible for delivering the paintwork on the P1 and P1GTR, followed by the Senna, Senna GTR, Speedtail, and Elva vehicles.
During my time at McLaren, I worked with a number of colleagues who have made it over to Charge. Andy Wilby (Head of Production) and Mark Roberts (CCO) are just a couple of familiar faces that I have been following since their departure from our previous place of work.
Initially my connection to Charge was established when Andy was asking for some advice regarding the painting of the ’67. What started as a chat evolved quite quickly into a “Would you be interested?” conversation with Julie (Head of HR), Matas (CTO) and Vadim (CEO). I didn’t see myself leaving McLaren after almost 20 years with the company, but here I am enjoying the new challenges at Charge Cars.
Charge is an exciting and innovative company, which is giving me the chance to utilise and develop my skills. I love being part of the team responsible for commissioning a brand-new facility whilst assembling our talented Body and Paint Team to help create something brilliant from such an iconic silhouette.
Both mine and my team’s ultimate responsibility is to ensure we can bring the car to production and meet the customers’ expectations for their new car. We must adhere to strict timelines and quality targets to ensure the project is progressing as planned. We have carefully brought together a team capable of delivering; we have experienced specialists and fresh enthusiastic professionals keen on the challenge of bringing this project to production. Currently we are a very close-knit team of 11 and we are gaining more experience of the car and developing our new processes day by day.
We are quite lucky that our work doesn’t go unnoticed! The first thing the customer will see when their vehicle is being handed over is the exterior paint finish. Once the cover on the car is pulled back, the customer will get their first visual impact of the colour they have chosen as it comes to life on a full-scale vehicle. We are fortunate to be the first wow factor. The customer then gets to see the inside of the ’67 another astounding accomplishment from the Charge Team. If the paint work looks fantastic, we are happy.
Some of the work we do may go unnoticed, for example the underneath and inside the bodyshell. We make sure the car is protected from the elements, so it is seam sealed to avoid any water ingress then painted to protect the steel shell from corrosion in future years. The main aim is to give the ’67 every chance of extending the longevity of its lifetime.
At Charge we offer each customer the opportunity to customise their vehicle. A customer can choose whatever they would like from a satin finish, to stripes on the roof, to pinstripes on the fenders, the options are endless. The biggest challenge to date has been the satin finish on our Kyanite Blue ’67 that was built for the US launch at the Petersen Automotive Museum last October. Visually it is a stunning car, but it takes a lot of time and skilled craftsmanship to make it look this good. The satin finish must be flawless from the first application, also ensuring the spray booths are clean along with the technicians themselves! This also means the production team must be extra cautious when building the car as you cannot polish out any marks on the paint finish.
We work very closely with the CMF Team (Colours, Materials & Finishes) and once they spec the vehicle with the customer, it’s our responsibility to bring their vision for their own ’67 to life. Every Team must come together at Charge, to build a brand new all-electric iconic ‘67.
From the start, the biggest challenge is the shell itself. We are working with modern day technologies building a brand-new steel shell that was originally designed in the ‘60s.
We have re-designed all the vehicles’ panels as carbon fibre components; the quality of carbon helps our process times along with giving us panel consistency whilst reducing the overall weight of the ’67. Currently we are working on consistency and repeatability; creating the style lines and painting the vehicle to a quality finish.
Every finish, whether it is pearl, satin or candy requires a different approach, we will trial application methods and spray gun set ups to prove out the process so it can be repeated each time giving us the desired effect. When the CMF department finalises a customer spec, we will create spray plaques and test panels along with a colour mould and colour master so we can check the colour harmony of the car.
On some occasions customers may want to see different variations of their chosen colour, such as a candy type finish, which with another application coat can increase the depth and vibrancy of the colour or give a more dramatic effect. We can then ask the customer to sign off which variation they would like and then our team will turn this into reality. This is the level of detail required to help the car look amazing.
Personally, the most exciting part for me to date has been helping to build and commission a bespoke facility from the outset. When I joined in January the paint shop was an empty warehouse and now, we have a fully functioning paint facility. There was a nervous anticipation starting at Charge, being the first person in the Paint Team with no paint shop in place especially after working for one company for almost 20 years! I feel very privileged to be involved from the start, helping to create our new paint facility and build up a completely new team is both exciting and rewarding.
Additionally, creating a VP (validation prototype) in a satin finish to be the first car rolling out of the paint shop was one of the most challenging things we have been asked to do. I am so pleased that it looks amazing and has received some fantastic external feedback. I am extremely proud of the Paint Team who did an outstanding job along with the whole Charge Cars Team who worked together to get it delivered on time. I could not be happier with how it turned out and am looking forward to seeing the ’67 in customers’ hands on the road.
