Top Drawer

Automotive Industries,  Feb, 2000  by Gerry Kobe

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Eclectic, obsessive, focused and humble, David Kimble shares his passion for life, art and all things mechanical.

The ghosted technical illustrations that beat his name ate recognized around the world as the state of the art. He has inspired imitators, tolerated plagiarists and confounded the computer geeks who try in vain to turn his craft into software. His illustration style is unique, a balanced blend of skill, long hours and imagination. As the acknowledged master at what he does, he has redefined technical illustration and ultimately loaned the artform his name.

He is David Kimble -- king of the cutaway technical drawing. If you're into cars, trains, planes and ships, you know his work.

An extremely private man, Kimble invites very few people to his Mafia, Texas, studio, home of David Kimble Illustration. But once inside this refurbished 19th century theatre known as "The Palace," the light of genius and passion bums bright in every room.

"I admit, I'm different," quips Kimble. "I'm a maniac. I go year to year or in a series of years and get intensely focused on what I'm interested in at the time. When I'm interested I want to get to the core of it. I think of nothing else. You can see that as you go around the Palace. That's why it's as eclectic as I am."

Kimble is spot-on in labeling himself eclectic, even to the point that he openly admits to relating to the Cleaver family of "Leave It To Beaver" fame.

"I grew up in California. My mother was an elementary school teacher and my father worked as an aerospace executive," he says. "I related to Tony Dow's character (Wally) and in fact he and I dated the same girl in high school. So I was destined to be different; I had some unusual influences."

Among the most important influences was a half-midget racer that was bought for him by his father when he was just 13. It put the "racing bug" into him and led to participation in sanctioned competition including SCCA and motorcycle racing. In fact, Kimble admits that racing led him to his biggest crossroad in life, deciding whether to pursue a career behind the wheel or behind an airbrush.

"I was a fairly successful SCCA racer in '65 and starting to get some recognition," Kimble recalls. "I had a chance to move up and get a free ride or else take a design job with Chapparral cars. I really believe I could have been a major league professional driver, but my decision is what brought me to Texas for the first time and led to how I met my wife, Ellen. So an awful lot of good came out of my decision. We've been married 30 years last August."

Over that period of time, Kimble has had an off-and-on love affair with racing as well as several other obvious passions. Just inside the front door of The Palace, for example, is an impressive collection of meticulously arranged fire department antiques. And just beyond that is a mind-boggling display that reflects his current hobby of collecting World War II memorabilia Of course, in the "big room" of the former theatre sits ZR-1 and C-5 Corvettes, a Camaro street racer as well as a Kawasaki ZX-7R racing bike, Ducati 851, FZR400 Yamaha and a Harley Sportster.

Typically, if Kimble has an interest in something, he captures it as part of a permanent display on the main floor of his theatre, although his highly-confidential illustrations are done upstairs behind locked doors.

Kimble confesses that his illustration skills have been honed over time, but are mostly a result of his passion and not his training. He says he has done cutaways since grade school, using shelf paper and crayons to satiate his creative appetite. He admits his formal education took him as far as Pasadena College studying physics, but that he was lured away before graduating to do drafting work on a car that made the Indy 500 in 1966.

He started his current business when he abandoned his "day job" as a design engineer for an RV company to do a one time illustration deal with Road & Track magazine. He had previously worked with and written for several other magazines, but the timing of the R&T project forced him make a choice between his career and his dream.

He ran his company successfully for 15 years in Burbank, but ultimately moved to his wife's hometown of Marfa after she inherited her mother's house.

How Kimble Does It

Kimble works seven days a week, averaging 14 hours a day. Work starts around 9 a.m., typically with a tape going into the VCR that powers the television directly in front of his drawing board.

"I just hit it as hard as I can until noon," he says. "Then I have a light lunch without stopping and go until four. Then I lie down for two hours, get up at six and go at it for another eight or 10 hours or whatever it takes. I can maintain 16 hours a day indefinitely, 18 for a month, 20 for a week. You reach a transcendental state."

Generally, Kimble doesn't work alone. He currently has just one assistant, but prior to 1993 when his studio was still located in Burbank, Calif., he had as many as 10.