Mangusta thread

Late to the party but... THE MANGUSTA IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MACHINE EVER TO COME OUT OF ITALY. In case it hasn't been said.

 

Harry, Someone will have to make an intervention.... you are going trough withdrawall.. even if you have been on a placebo all this time.

 

Forget the intervention, someone will have to sell me their car!!

 

I got dibs on Mike's Mangusta..........HANDS OFF!

 

I see in the list of cars owned we have a few owners who have not chimed in.

Alessandro and Anthony from NY, Dave from Ozarks, Vaile from TX, william from HI, Doug from CA
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DenisC's personalized license plate prompts this. In case someone needs a clue: see Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book".
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Puebla, The personal tags play on DeTomaso's choice of name as in: The 'Mongoose' is the only animal capable of killing a 'Cobra'.

here is my understanding of the facts (or legend): Carol Shelby / Pete Brock are reputed to have worked together on the Sport 5000 group 9 car, and when this project did not come together DeTomaso decided to produce the Ghia500 car. Then as legend has it the motors he had ordered (HiPo 289's) went to Shelby, so spitefully the car was then renamed 'Mangusta'
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Or De Tomaso F'd up the first car by not knowing how to read the blueprints and by the time the second car was finally finished the series and cars advantage was gone, so it was abandoned. De Tomaso being the jackal warmed up the left overs and tried to sell it as his creation. Most of De Tomaso's cars have some similar twist.

 

Now Richard, You should know that DeTomaso was no engineer. He was a hard businessman/boss ; nasty with words (like you a bit), he took advantage of government subcidies and business opportunities, his team built a beautiful frame that could compete with the Miura's frame. When the Gr9 project went south he had another unsealable project with the ISO body Giugiaro had designed. He took 2 projects he had invested in and were not accepted and managed to sell cars to fulfill orders. And that put him on the map. Enzo wasn't any nicer (he fired the whole crew in '61 - Bizzarini et al)

 

It's not about him not being nice, he was just a hack. Most of his products were severely flawed. The Pantera was the best of the bunch , but in order to get one to really work you have to strip it down and rebuild it.

 

Almost nothing is perfect out of the box event in today's environement where quality control and CadCam exists. (The worst ones are called recalls- the minors are iritants) Back then it was a lot of experimentation, often by the seat of the pants. Name me a car (even a brand new one - a brand new model that is) that you would take from the showroom to the track; Heck I wonder if there even was a single car at Race the Base that was bone stock, some had 6 figure mods. Manufacturing is a financial equation, the faster you get to break even, the more money you make. Still in today's market they figure how to 'de-content' existing models to increase the margins.

Many Valleluga's raced, Many Formula 2 and juniors raced in the early 60' , then even in F1. Up to the mid-70's, nobody reached the same amount of cars produced in Modena.

Ps; Take a Vallelunga for a ride and compare it to others from the early 60's, then do the same with a Mangusta or a Pantera. I tell you, I have done it, and not always easy on the gas pedal. Automotive journalist write stuff and other re-write it , so the same BS gets re-hashed and no-one goes back to the basics to do their own homework.

 

Porsche GT3 is about perfect.

Alfa GTA

Renault Alpine

Bizzarrini 5300

XKSS Jag



just to name a few

Most of De Tomaso cars all had huge flaws and he didn't fix most of them.He was too bust trying to figure out how to get the next deal.

Try getting a Biturbo to run more than a hundred miles

 

I'm no expert and am really only familiar with DeTomaso cars, so from Wiki :
- The Porsche 911 GT3 is as a high performance version of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is the latest in a long line of high performance models which began with the 1973 911 RS.

- The Alfa GTA was the successor to the 1962 Alfa Giuliatta it evolved to GTA the 'A' standing for "Alleggerita", Italian for lightweight, 500 were made for Homologation.

- Renault alpine was produced from 1955 to 1995, it existed in various incarnations (15 to be exact)

- Bizzarrini 5300, The mechanical parts were the much the same as the Iso A3C's

- The Jaguar XKSS was a road-going version of the Jaguar D-Type racing car.

None of the above were low volume, totally new out of the box cars (well maybe the the Bizz, at least the body half)

Again I know the DT cars best, (not familiar enough to coment on the others: Masserati, Innocenti, Ducatti, and others). As stated the flaws, based on my experience, I believe were stongly exagerated, with regards to Vallelunga, Mangusta and Pantera (early cars were all hand built low tech at Vignale. When production moved to via Emilia under Ford tutelage.

 

Oh new out of the Box and in the 60's well the Iso A3C was new and they drove it to LeMans the first year and it won it's class and took 9th overall.

GT40 did pretty well

289 and 427 Cobra's weren't to bad either

Porsche 904 was an amazing machine so were the Abarth Porsches

the ATS was good, so was the ASA.

even the Fiat 600 was good, it had to have it's own class

so how many races did the Vallelunga win?

 

Ok this has turned into a pissing contest....

The above are all racing cars or in the case of the 600 large production cars. My point is you are dishing the DeT cars (low production , hand made cars) because one (or a few) journalist and the plagiarist journalists who never bothered to drive (or only on a short drive) the cars did not like them. It's like saying a GT40 is claustrophobic and hot or a Cobra runs rough and is hot and dusty or a 308 is severely underpowered F-car.

Just personally take a Vallelunga or a Pantera or a Mangusta (as this is the Mangusta thread) for a drive tell me if they overheat or oversteer or understeer or catch fire. They are a thrill and a half to drive unique cars.

It's attitude that from naysayers sitting on the curb that downplay the marque

 

That's fine, no offense taken, but is there no room for any debate in the DT world? My only negative point is that DT is often held up on a pedestal by the DT owners, but history and reality are much different. This is evident by the recent articles written by the Veloce Press.

I will leave it on a good note, the Mangusta is a great looking car, one of the best ever.

 

No one ever said DeT was a great guy, or lovable in any sense. He was a business man, and as such made transactions without emotions, be it cars, factories, brands, employees or what ever he bought and sold.

The point is (just as F-car) owners love their cars, they (we) have a passion for them and we are (slightly) offended when someone says their car is a piece of **** . As staded the article in Veloce Today was greatly criticized for its inacuracies by owners and other lovers.

No one car is perfect. To each their own. Make love not war. These forums were created to bring owners, future owners, dreamers (and car buffs) together not divide them.

Live long and prosper.

 

To the best of my knowledge, you are actually not "in the DT world".

And if not, then you are just a guy standing outside the party throwing rocks at the people dancing inside.

 

Don't be rude, you have no idea.

 

Thanks for the holiday treat. I've never seen one from that angle.