De Tomaso

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De Tomaso Modena SpA

logo
legal form Società per Azioni
founding 1959
resolution 2012
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat Modena , Italy
management Alejandro de Tomaso
Branch Automobile manufacturer

De Tomaso was an Italian manufacturer of racing and street sports cars. The company founded by the native Argentine Alejandro de Tomaso was based in Modena . At times it was closely associated with the Ford group, which supplied the engines for almost all of the brand's series vehicles. The De Tomaso models were powerful and luxurious, but were not perceived as equivalent competitors to Maserati or Ferraris because of their large-scale US engines. De Tomaso's most successful model is the Pantera mid-engined sports car , which remained on sale for over two decades and was produced more than 7,000 times; all other vehicles only achieved three-digit production figures. In the 1960s, Modena also built racing cars for Formula 1, which were unsuccessfully used by the Scuderia De Tomaso works team. Following bankruptcy in 2012, the rights to the De Tomaso name have been owned by a Chinese investor since 2015.

Company history

The Argentine Alejandro de Tomaso was born in Buenos Aires on July 10, 1928, the son of a socialist minister of the pre- Juan Perón era , and retained Argentine citizenship, although he came to Bologna in 1955 . The logo used from 1959 to 2011 proves the birthplace of the founder in the form of the Argentine national colors reverence .

Roots in motorsport

The basis of the company was motorsport. De Tomaso founded an automobile workshop in Modena, Italy , in 1959 with the financial support of his wife Isabelle Haskell . De Tomaso initially designed racing cars for Formula 1 , some of which he used in his own works team, while he sold others to customer teams. After these approaches were unsuccessful, De Tomaso shifted the focus of his company in the mid-1960s to the development of road sports cars. Together with the Ghia bodywork, he created racing spiders with Ford engines. Derived from this, the first street sports car Vallelunga was created in 1965 .

Street sports car

De Tomaso Mangusta
De Tomaso's most successful and best-known model: De Tomaso Pantera

In 1963, the manufacturer presented its first road vehicle in Turin : the Vallelunga. It had a 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine with 105 hp and was only built 48 times. Production started in 1965 but stopped a good year later. De Tomaso used a large American eight-cylinder engine for the first time in the successor model, the Mangusta introduced in 1966 , which had a sensational body by Giorgetto Giugiaro. It was a 4.7 liter V8 from Ford, which had 305 hp and was installed as a mid-engine. The company should remain true to this concept until the end. The Mangusta was significantly more successful than the filigree Vallelunga: around 400 copies were produced by 1968.

The Pantera model , designed by Tom Tjaarda, achieved particular fame, of which 7260 units were built in various versions from 1971 to 1993. He also got a V8 engine: 5.8 liter displacement with 310 hp. Almost 6100 of these were sold within a few years through a distribution agreement with the Lincoln-Mercury dealer network in the USA; after the agreement was dissolved, however, the production was mostly reduced to a few dozen copies per year. At the beginning of the 1970s, De Tomaso expanded its range of models. In addition to the Pantera sports car, the four-seater Longchamp Coupé was derived, from which there was also a convertible version for a short time, as well as a luxury sedan based on Longchamp technology called Deauville , which initially competed with the Maserati Quattroporte and finally after its production cessation in the 1970s Years ago.

De Tomaso did not give any of his vehicles any serious facelift in the 1970s or 1980s. The products became increasingly obsolete and eventually became difficult to sell. De Tomaso's focus during this time was primarily on the other brands that belonged to his group of companies.

Group with numerous brands

Alejandro de Tomaso took over several companies over the years. These include Carrozzeria Vignale and Carrozzeria Ghia (both 1969), both of which he resold to Ford in the same year , Benelli (1971), Moto Guzzi (1972), Maserati (1975) and Innocenti (1976). Financial problems were the main reason for the sale of all investments. Most recently, Fiat took over the traditional company Maserati.

Decline and bankruptcy

De Tomaso Deauville (2011)

At the end of the 1990s, the manufacturer tried to restart the brand with the Biguà, which came onto the market as Qvale Mangusta in 2000 after disagreements with the financier . The last mass-produced model was the Guarà sports car , which used drive technology from BMW and Ford. However, the company was unable to ensure permanent production. Altogether not even 40 copies of the Guarà were made.

In 2003, the year of his death, Alejandro de Tomaso tried to gain a foothold again with the study of a new Pantera. However, the project did not get beyond the model stage. In 2004, the insolvency proceedings was at the request of a creditor De Tomaso Modena S.pA opened. The liquidation of the company lasted until 2012. Over the years, several successor companies emerged from this:

  • RS Corse in Modena took over customer service for old De Tomaso vehicles and keeps spare parts ready. The company was founded by Alejandro De Tomaso's son Santiago and Ludovico Raffaele.
  • In 2009 the Italian company IAI (Innovation in Auto Industry), led by Gian Mario Rossignolo, acquired the rights to the De Tomaso brand name. IAI renamed itself then in de Tomaso Automobili S.pA order. On January 1, 2010, shares in Pininfarina including 900 employees were taken over. In the course of this, the company headquarters was relocated to Grugliasco . At the Geneva Motor Show 2011, the Deauville, an SUV study designed by Pininfarina, was presented. However, serial production was not started because the company filed for bankruptcy shortly after the presentation. For this reason, two other planned models were no longer published.

In July 2012, Gian Mario Rossignolo was arrested on suspicion that he had embezzled government funds of € 7.5 million. In 2014 the company was wound up due to insolvency.

Ideal team venture

De Tomaso P72 (2019)

In 2014, the Chinese consortium Ideal Team Venture , which already owns the Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS) brand , acquired the naming rights to De Tomaso. The former factory halls in Modena can still be found today as industrial ruins.

At the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2019, the new owner presented the De Tomaso P72 concept vehicle , an open sports car with a body designed by Jowyn Wong . The car is said to pay homage to the De Tomaso P70 racing car . Series production has been announced for 2020; production should be limited to 72 vehicles.

Street sports car from de Tomaso

Production sports car

Ford V8s were mostly used as engines. The Guarà, in which BMW V8s were initially used, is an exception . The Guarà was last equipped with a Ford engine.

Unique pieces and studies

De Tomaso Montella
  • The De Tomaso Pampero is a two-seater full convertible based on the De Tomaso Vallelunga with a body designed by Giugiaro and built by Ghia. It was shown at the Turin Motor Show in 1966. The car remained a one-off.
  • The De Tomaso 1600 was the prototype of a small mid-engined sports car with a Bertone body, which was strongly reminiscent of the Fiat X1 / 9 . The car was presented in Turin in 1970.
  • De Tomaso Zonda , a two-seater front-engined coupe with a body by Ghia in the style of the Maserati Ghibli . The vehicle was shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971. It had the well-known 5.7 liter eight-cylinder from Ford. The Zonda also remained a one-off.
  • De Tomaso Pantera II or Pantera 7X : prototype developed in 1971 for the successor to the Pantera with a body by Tom Tjaarda . Introduced again two years later as De Tomaso Montella .

Other vehicles with the name De Tomaso

Innocenti Mini De Tomaso

In addition to the sports cars mentioned, the name De Tomaso appeared repeatedly in connection with mass-produced vehicles. Here it should designate a particularly sporty equipment line. Such vehicles were

  • the Innocenti De Tomaso , a visually revised version of the Innocenti Mini
  • the Dodge Omni 024 De Tomaso, a coupé version of a commercially available compact car sold exclusively in America. The five-door Dodge Omni and its twin brother Plymouth Horizon did not correspond completely, but at least in many parts to the compact car Horizon manufactured in France, which was initially sold as Chrysler (France) or Simca and later as Talbot . Chrysler USA had developed a two-door hatchback version of the Omni / Horizon for the American market only, which was called the Dodge Omni 024 and the Plymouth Horizon TC. The sportiest version of the Dodge Omni Coupé was called the Omni 024 de Tomaso in 1980/1981 . There was no counterpart at Plymouth. It was a pure optics package, technical changes or even increased engine power were not associated with the package. De Tomaso had no part in the development of the car. However, the relationship with Chrysler came about through Lee Iacocca , the manager who at the end of the 1960s, still in Ford service, had been instrumental in the marketing idea of ​​the Pantera and had been at the helm of the Chrysler group since 1977 .

De Tomaso in motorsport

De Tomaso's first racing car: the Isis
The De Tomaso 505 designed by Dallara and used by Frank Williams Racing Cars in Formula 1 in 1970.

De Tomaso's first race car was for Formula Junior certain Isis , of a copy of a contemporary Cooper T43 was. On this basis, de Tomaso first built the F2 , a one-off piece for Formula 2, and then five copies of the Formula 1 model De Tomaso F1 derived from the F2 . Most of the cars were fitted with high- volume Alfa Romeo engines that Virgilio Conrero had tuned; some models also had engines from OSCA . They did not reach the performance of the competing manufacturers by far and were very prone to defects as a result of the strong tuning. The cars were also poorly prepared and were considered the weakest vehicles of the 1.5-liter era of Formula 1. In 1962, De Tomaso presented the 801, a new model that was equipped with an engine that was developed in-house. This construction was too inefficient to be competitive. Alejandro De Tomaso's works team, often reported as Scuderia Isobel De Tomaso as a tribute to his wife, limited itself to participating in two Formula 1 world championship races between 1961 and 1963, in which it did not score any points, and also started individual races that did not have world championship status. The customer teams such as Scuderia Serenissima and Scuderia Settecolli were also unsuccessful . After De Tomaso was unable to achieve any racing success with this model either, he discontinued his monoposto program at the end of 1963. Alejandro de Tomaso announced at the end of 1963 the development of another engine that would have twelve cylinders; but this engine never got beyond the project phase. It was not until 1970 , was present as the focus of the company is already on the production of sports cars, De Tomaso returned to F1. A joint project with Frank Williams Racing Cars was intended to support the marketing of the Pantera sports car , but it came to an early end after Williams' regular driver Piers Courage had a fatal accident in a De Tomaso 505 at the Dutch Grand Prix .

Racing cars for Formula 3 and Indianapolis were also built, but never started a race.

swell

  • Halwart Schrader , Georg Amtmann: Italian sports cars , 1st edition 1999. ISBN 3-613-01988-4
  • Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 . Motor Racing Publications (London) 1998. ISBN 1-899870-39-3
  • Hans-Karl Lange: The quake is still rumbling . De Tomaso's end. In: Oldtimer Markt, Issue 8/2012, S: 50 ff.

Web links

Commons : De Tomaso  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Götz Leyrer: half-blood. Test report De Tomaso Longchamp. auto motor und sport issue 10/1978.
  2. ↑ a b c Once upon a time ..., Automobilrevue No. 45, November 10, 2010
  3. ↑ Internet presence of the company RS Corse (accessed on July 28, 2012).
  4. ↑ Oldtimer Markt, issue 8/2012, p. 51.
  5. ↑ De Tomaso - Nobel brand before rebirth
  6. ↑ Decision of the European Parliament
  7. ^ NN: De Tomaso: Chinese investors buy legendary car brand. Handelsblatt dated April 28, 2015 (accessed February 3, 2017).
  8. ↑ De Tomaso: The Sad End of a Sports Car Empire , Die Welt Online from December 6, 2017.
  9. ↑ Presentation of the De Tomaso P72 with images on the website www.petrolicious.com (accessed on July 13, 2019).
  10. ↑ DeTomaso.it - ​​Vallelunga ( Memento of August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ DeTomaso.it - ​​Mangusta ( Memento from January 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ DeTomaso.it - ​​Pantera ( Memento from September 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ DeTomaso.it - ​​Deauville ( Memento of January 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ DeTomaso.it - ​​Longchamp ( Memento of August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ History of de Tomaso Montella on the website www.supercars.net (accessed on February 4, 2017).
  16. ^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars 1906-2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 , p. 75.
  17. ^ Mark Whitelock: 1½-liter Grand Prix Racing: Low Power, High Tech , Veloce Publishing Ltd, 2006, ISBN 9781845840167 , p. 288.
  18. ↑ Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-65 , p. 111: "De Tomaso must qualify as the absolute lemon of the 1 ½ liter Formula 1, beating even the dreadful ATS for that unenviable distinction."
  19. ↑ Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1899870393 , p. 110.
  20. ^ Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars, p. 75.
Timeline of the De Tomaso series models
Type 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s
0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 0 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9
Roadster Guarà
Sports car Vallelunga Mangusta Pantera Biguà / Mangusta
Middle class Longchamp
Upper class Deauville
  •  Developed as “De Tomaso Biguà”, marketed as “Qvale Mangusta”
    		•