De Tomaso: A Boutique Automaker Lost to the Ages

De Tomaso: A Boutique Automaker Lost to the Ages

black and white portrait photo of alejandro de tomaso
A young Alejandro de Tomaso

De Tomaso as a car manufacturer has had a turbulent life, but that fact that it’s not quite dead yet and may even be on a comeback is a testament to the awesome Italian sports cars they created in the 60’s and 70’s, which some would say were visually on par with the like of Lamborghini and Ferrari.

De Tomaso was founded in 1959 in Modena, one of Italy’s main centres of the automotive industry, sharing a birthplace with Ferrari and Maserati. Alejandro de Tomaso, Argentinian-born (hence the colors on the De Tomaso logo) and former F1 driver, started his namesake company by building prototypes and racing cars, and then moving on to create their first sports car in 1963.

red de tomaso vallelunga on a cobblestone road
De Tomaso Vallelunga, named after Autodromo di Vallelunga racing circuit.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer and Image Street Classics
rear view of a red de tomaso vallelunga on a cobblestone road
The curvy yet simple rear view of the Vallelunga.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer and Image Street Classics

De Tomaso’s first road-going production model was the Vallelunga. Named after Autodromo di Vallelunga racing circuit, it featured a tubular steel back-bone chassis that would become the companies technical feature present in most of its cars. Powered by a 1.5 L straight-4 Ford Kent from the Cortina, but tuned to a power output of 104 hp at 6,200 rpm and mated to a Volkswagen Beetle transaxle. A total of about 60 were produced between 1964 and 1967.

orange de tomaso mangusta on a wet forest road
1 of the 401 production models of the Mangusta.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer
rear view of a orange de tomaso mangusta inside a garage
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer
rear view of a orange de tomaso mangusta inside a garage with gullwing engine bay doors open
Center-hinged hood revealing the 302ci Ford V8.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer

With the Vallelunga production finished, De Tomaso moved on to the Mangusta in 1967. Named after the Cobra-eating Mongoose, it is alleged it was named this way in retaliation for a failed deal between Shelby and De Tomaso. The Mangusta was designed by the famed Giorgetto Giugiaro, with the main highlight of the design being a center-hinged, two-section hood that opened liked gullwing doors. Underneath, you would find a Ford HiPo 289 V8 engine with 306 HP in the initial European cars, and a Ford 302 V8 engine with 230 HP in the later versions for the rest of the European and American versions. The Mangusta continued the tradition of using a back-bone chassis and was relatively inexpensive for the time, but the 44/56 front/rear weight distribution stability and handling problems. By the end of production in 1971, about 400 Mangustas were built.

burgandy de tomaso pantera on road
Probably the most well known De Tomaso production car, the Pantera.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer and Blue Chip Car
rear view of a burgandy de tomaso pantera on road
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer and Blue Chip Car
black de tomaso pantera GT5 on a forest road
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer and howS Imports

The De Tomaso Pantera succeeded the Mangusta in 1971. Designed by Tom Tjaarda, it had a 5.8 L Ford Cleveland V8 engine with 330 hp. Unlike the previous models, the Pantera did not use De Tomaso’s signature back-bone chassis construction, opting instead for a steel monocoque design. Through a licensing deal with Ford, De Tomaso sold Panteras in the USA through Ford’s Lincoln and Mercury dealers, leading to 6,128 Panteras being produced between 1971 and 1973. Unfortunately, the 1973 Oil Crisis led to Ford pulling out of the deal and gaining control of the entire production process. However, De Tomaso retained the rights from Ford to produce the car for the “rest of the world” market, allowing Pantera production to continue, albeit on a much smaller scale, with fewer than 100 cars produced annually throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Ford stopped importing the Pantera to the US in 1975, having sold around 5,500 cars but De Tomaso kept selling a variety of version of the Pantera, some of which would still spark interest in America, leading to gray market examples being imported into the US. By late 1986, 7,260 cars in total were built.

black de tomaso pantera 90 Si on a gravel road
The Pantera 90 Si, the rarest of the Panteras, with only about 40 ever produced.
Photo Credit: The Cultivated Collector

But still, the Pantera was not dead yet. In 1990, the Pantera was redesigned by Marcello Ghandini into the toned down yet still muscular Pantera 90 Si. The “Si” stood for iniezione—Italian for fuel injection, and only 40 examples would be produced, marking the end of the Pantera by 1993.

yellow de tomaso guara coupe on a grassy gravel road
The Guarà would be the last project Alejandro De Tomaso would oversee.
Photo Credit: Collecting Cars
yellow de tomaso guara coupe on a grassy gravel road
Photo Credit: Collecting Cars
red de tomaso guara barchetta on a narrow road in a green, fenced pasture
DeTomaso Guara Barchetta, Barchetta means “little boat” in Italian, a term often used for this vehicle body style.
Photo Credit: Bring-A-Trailer

The De Tomaso Guarà would succeed the Pantera in 1993 and would be the last project Alejandro de Tomaso would put into the market. Based on the Maserati Barchetta Stradale prototype from 1991 (De Tomasa owned Maserati from 1976 to 1993), it was designed by Carlo Gaino. The back-bone chassis made a comeback with the Guarà, and early versions received a 4.0-litre BMW M60 V8 engine. This would change to a 4.6-litre supercharged cast-iron block V8 engine from Ford after BMW phased out the M60 V8. When De Tomaso went into liquidation in 2004, they had stopped production of the Guarà but they were still being sold or delivered until the very last one was delivered in 2011. By the end, only about 52 were built.

gray orange de tomaso p72 coming out of garage on a race track
De Tomaso made a comeback years after going into liquidation with the P72, first revealed at the Good Wood Festival of Speed in 2019.
Photo Credit: De Tomaso
leather and bronze interior of a de tomaso p72
The hand crafted interior of the P72 featuring luxurious materials.
Photo Credit: De Tomaso
rear view of a yellow de tomaso p72 in a mountain side parking lot
Photo Credit: De Tomaso
yellow de tomaso p72 racing on a mountain road
Photo Credit: De Tomaso

Following a failed revival by Gian Mario Rossignolo, who bought the the De Tomaso trademark in 2009 and was subsequently arrested for embezzling 7.5 million Euro worth of government funds that was supposed to be used to revive the brand in 2012, the brand was bought by Hong Kong-based Ideal Team Ventures in 2105. Ideal Team Ventures also owns Apollo Automobil, and introduced the retro-inspired P72 at the Good Wood Festival of Speed in 2019. The design was penned by Jowyn Wong and is an homage to the P70, a race car built by Shelby and styled by Peter Brock for De Tomaso back in the late 1960’s. Power is to be sourced from a supercharged Ford Coyote V8 engine featuring a Roots-type supercharger manufactured and tuned by Roush Performance, resulting in a total of 750 HP. A chassis borrowed from it’s sister company’s vehicle, the Apollo Intensa Emozione, will underpin the planned 72 production models. For awhile after its introduction, the company went dark, with little information regarding the production of the P72. But early this year, De Tomaso finally announced via their instagram that production has started, so hopefully those 72 examples will start to show up and revive interest in this somewhat forgotten Italian marque.

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