This would be a cool car to own: 1965 deTomaso Sport 5000, chassis No. 001 - Symbolic International Photo Gallery Mike
Is that the car Caroll Shelby turned down? I think De Tomaso had that car built hoping for Shelby to race it in CanAm. Hence the Pete Brock connection (he designed the Cobra Daytona). At the time, the rumour was that Ford blocked the deal, and Shelby had the King Cobra instead.
FWIW Here is the foot box on the Mangusta. Never had the steering shaft impede on my driving. What I find most surprising in this car are the coolant tubes running inside the car rather than under or in the torque box. Shelby was long out of the picture by the time this car was built. Pete Brock was on his own venture too. This car and its older siblings discussed in Vallelunga thread post 72 to 100 http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/other-italian/71054-de-tomaso-vallelunga-4.html No, this is not he car Pete Brock designed, it is a revised version as the original design did not meet the 1965 (?) FIA (?) requirements.(wipers, signal lights, doors ect) Three (3) DeT cars are attributed to Pete but only the middle one is actually HIS; the first body had major scale issues mainly between seat and steering wheel, the second he actually built alongside Medardo Fantuzzi and this third version which has many similarities. Afterwards Giugiaro also used similar design in the Sport 1000 and 2000 but the cars are at a smaller scale have small CC engine and almost look like gokarts. I had looked at the P70 and Sport5000 in 2009 (?) while they were at VDV Grant, was very much interested in the P70 but decided to pass At the time VDV Wanted $1M per, current asking for this one is in the $2M range. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great looking car. Definitely crafted at a time before CAD, when beautiful cars had to pass the eyeball test. Some of the engineering choices erred on the side of beauty. Things are different now, not necessarily better. Shelby was destined to be a team owner. Staying with someone else's team, racing for glory, was only going to take him so far.
