David Miscavige, self-proclaimed “ecclesiastical leader” of the Church of Scientology, used many shifts to lead Tom Cruise into becoming his bossom buddy and foresaking his career by way of public Miscavige-like behaviors. One tactic was to use under-minimum-wage church staff to produce a string of over-the-top “personal” gifts from Dave to Tom. One of those gifts was a custom-upgraded bus specially designed and tricked to cater to Tom’s every wish for a personal facility on the set of his movies. While Cruise paid the costs of material and non-Scientology core structural labor, many hundreds of hours of Sea Org (the fraternal, elite “religious” order of Scientology) labor and craftsmanship coordinated, designed, and executed the plan to deliver a one-of-a-kind product, from Dave to Tom with love.
Custom Made Logo For Dave to Tom Love Bus
The following despatch from Dir Vehicles Gold (Yvonnne Gonzalves) to COB COMM RTC refers to her Sea Org crew running rampant through Marathon (custom coach) company to ensure Dave’s target for delivering Tom’s bus is met. This is only the beginning of the bizarre story of a “church” turned into a Hollywood custom gift production unit.
COB COMM RTC 13 July 2005
DIR VEHICLES
Re: SILVER SCREEN
Dear Sir;
Thanks very much and yes I have been silent.
I have been working over the Marathon owner, production head and head of engineering and design in order to get the TM back.
In present time the bus is to be completed by August 28th from Sept 12th from October 28th– I have done this by making quality control get done whilst the coach is being built [instead of one week at the end of manufacture], except for one test which has to get done at the end (electrical load test which required 12 hours of running the bus at full electrical load to ensure it can handle it – is a safety test). Only allowing 4 days for the painting of the coach (normally a 3 week TM). Getting as much done concurrent as possible.
I did find the why which you had mentioned to JB you did not feel had been found and it is financial.
Despite the planning being in place the bus was moving at a snail’s pace.
To explain, this company is building 18 coaches concurrent and Silver Screen is a custom coach requiring 2X the hours and incurs overtime. It is not handled with any priority due to the funding it requires. The general spec coaches which are sold off the lot and bring in instant funds are kept going through the production line in order to keep the company above boards. Bumping any of these “spec” coaches results in finance troubles and personnel out of work and is why the owner and head of production do not want to “speed” Silver Screen up.
It is one of the main factors which resulted in the owner and head of production bumping the Silver Screen bus back to Oct 28th.
This bus is more custom than anything they have ever done.
I am not making this my problem – it is the companies and am making the owner and head of production very aware of who they are making the coach for and the result this will have for them as a company.
It has started to move better as a result once I got this out of the head of production on the finance and is why I have the TM back to August 28th – literally I am running the head of production on the bus at least three times a day getting reports from him and ensuring that dones are gotten and any bugs/questions are handled.
There are two shifts on the bus and means that there are personnel on it from 7am till 12am at night. There is an estimated 9,000 man hours to go on its production and thus is 2,500 hours a week I need on it and there are currently 1,500 hours worked out to occur per week and this is being worked on by the head of production.
I am pushing them on purpose and getting the bus done for the man even before August 28th and will keep hammering them for how to get it reduced further. Naming out where time can be saved and getting this executed.
This company operates on a corporate organization tech which states people come first and I am pushing this to the hilt as well i.e. service as that is all I am asking for.
The owner and head of production repeatedly tell me that they wish I had been on the project back in Dec 2004 when Michael Doven first started it and in Feb 05 when he “signed the spec sheet” for the original design. As I literally handle any question within hours if not 10 minutes when they arise – like light fixture issues etc. I keep telling them they have no excuse not to get this bus done and it is in their best interest to get it delivered in exceptional time frame and anything they need I will handle.
Also for the four weeks that Mr. Cruise is shooting and Silver Screen is in production the owner keeps offering a brand new coach for him to use for that time period which I have refused. I want the real coach for him to shoot with.
I am going to continue to push on doing more actions on the coach concurrent in order to get the coach done for Mr. Cruise.
I have brought it back an additional 2 weeks and obviously need to continue.
Sherry is assisting at anytime I need her.
The roman shades were all sorted out and they look gorgeous.
This is ok.
ML,
P.S. One other idea I had to further get the TM brought back I could have Tommy D call and tell them that Mr. Cruise is expecting the coach on site when he starts to shoot on July 27th and that they had better deliver. I thought of using Tommy on it as part of his liability and assisting to get it done since he failed to inform that this coach was being built. Maybe this is not a good idea but thought I should communicate it.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 