Miami design expert got his start in auto design competition
By Ron Beasley
Reprinted from the Pinecrest Tribune with permission

When Tom Graboski read the story in Community Newspapers about the concept car design competition for Miami-Dade high school students, it sparked memories of the 1960s when he and his twin brother entered the General Motors-Fisher Body contests and won.

The 55-year-old Graboski, who heads up an acclaimed Coral Gables urban design firm that creates signage for many of the nation’s cities and major corporations says he wanted to be an automobile designer when he was a teenager. As a high school student at Miami Central, he and his twin brother dominated local model car design contests at the old Orange Blossom Hobby Shop in Allapattah, usually winning one of the top prizes in a field of more than 200 entrants. Both went on to gain national honors.

“In ’66, we both entered the General Motors Fisher Body styling competition and I got a second place and he got a third place in Florida,” said Graboski. “I got a check for $50 and he got one for $25. Then, in ’67, my brother got first in Florida and I got second. He went on to win the southeast region with his model and then won the national styling award for his model that year.”

The next year, the brothers entered the design competition again. His brother received a block of foam from GM to carve his model from and finished with a six-inch piece left over. Graboski took the excess and carved a unique model that went on to win top honors nationally in 1968 and a $5,000 scholarship award.

“I broke all the rules,” he said. “The idea of an urban car was appealing and big cars were not the thing of the future. I finished second in Florida – my brother won first again and won the region again – but my little car won the national styling award. It was sad, though, because that was the last year that GM did the contest.”

Graboski, who came to Miami from Chicago when he was 5 years old and grew up in the Northwest section, graduated Central High School fourth in his class in 1966. He attended two years at Miami-Dade, majoring in art, then one semester at the University of Michigan before transferring to the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

“A strong interest in urban design started at Art Center with the urban streetscape elements, street furniture and certain industrial design aspects of that piece of architecture,” he said. “I just gravitated toward doing things with urban systems and urban design; I didn’t really want to design the buildings, but I thought doing the things in between – the streetscape stuff –was pretty neat.”

Graboski took his Master’s degree in urban design from the University of Miami School of Architecture and went on to teach at the school. He landed a big job with NCO, which was converting the SS France ocean liner into the SS Norway, designing signage to help people find their way around the ship. He has been connected with ships and signage ever since, but his business goes beyond the cruise line industry.

“We’ve done the signage for Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure, we’re doing the signage for the Coral Gables Trolley, the parking and garage signs for the Gables. In Coconut Grove, we’re developing a vehicular and pedestrian way-finding system.”

His company has also developed the signage for Dadeland Station and the Biltmore Hotel, as well as numerous condominiums such as the Santa Maria and Crystal Tower, for Celebrity Cruises, the new Parrot Jungle on Watson Island, Baptist Hospital and the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland. He’s even designed a half-dozen miniature golf courses on the aft decks of cruise ships. His company averages a million dollars a year in billing.

“At one time, I was interested in designing cars,” said Graboski, who owns a vintage 1949 MG and drives an Audi TT. “That’s what I wanted to do. And I’m still a car freak, really. In high school, that was the thing I wanted to do, design cars.”

Only recently did he get a few regrets about not pursuing a career in automotive design.

“When the Viper came out six or seven years ago, that’s when I began having some regrets,” he said. “Prior to that there were none. Since the Viper, car design has got a lot more interesting and certainly a lot more creative. The more recent designs that have come out have got exciting again. In the back of my mind, if I ever get rich, I’ll probably build a car from scratch. I still would love to do that.”

Graboski urges today’s high school students with an interest in cars to enter the Community Newspapers Dream Rides contest.

“There are a lot of dreams out there with kids when they’re that age and have the fantasy of automobiles,” said Graboski. “It took me a long way and I’ve come a long way from where that was, but that’s where it started. And this competition you have is easier to enter because they don’t have to build a model, they only have to draw the car. I would tell kids to by all means, go for it!”