DE Tomaso Sport Prototype

At Spa
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Stunning! Love the cockpit tonneau.

 

interior
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Car was designed by Pete Brock and hand hammered by Fantuzzi in 1964-65. Pete's design are similat to Lang Cooper cars but featured many improved features, the most special was a rear variable spoiler linked to the transmission shifter. According to Pete current car has a non-original motor and rear section (read cloned). Note added roll bars and new steering and gauges.

The original front section was removed and stored on a shelf at the factory for ages and was replaced by a redesigned in an effort to meet next 1966 revised racing regulation (wipers, signal lights and opening doors IIRC). The revised car was registered for 3 races but was DNS. The only time this car was ever tracked was at SPA in 2008 (?) at which time the Ford 289 was blown.

Pete Brock was just out of employment at Shelby and was to be the exclusive distributor for NorthAmerica. His original drawings were sent ahead and were poorly executed so he ended-up on the floor at Fantuzzi along the sides of the craftsmen to closely follow the correct build.

DeTomaso had really special motors in the works for this car, 5 or 6 remain. Originally the heads were reworked and cast in aluminium, then the block was reworked and re-cast in aluminium and a flat crank incorporated along with a Telecalemit injection. Horsepower was claimed to be 506HP.

It is rumored (never confirmed) that DeTomaso was never paid for the build of this car

This design project was recycled to become the Mangusta.

Both this car and the revised version are (were) for sale in Belgium for many years.

 

Wrong story, do some home work.
Both cars was built during the same time and the P70 was accidented and dismantel after a testing crash and both cars are in USA

 

is that the radiator return pipe under the gas pedal??? Now there is some engineering!

 

LOL foot warmer!

 

when blackhawk was displaying one a few years ago I was walking a few feet behind
Pete Brock who designed the car for Shelby (Shelby dropped out and DeTomaso claimed it as a Ghia design) and he stopped and looked at it and said "pretty good copy." So I don't know which of the 3 or 4 floating around is the real one that DeTomaso displayed or the replica?Also there was one done earlier with slightly different lines before Brock complained about the first one and the job was taken down to Fantuzzi's shop. DeTomaso also claimed the 289 engine would produce over 500 hp. when Shelby's guys had seen 289s grenade when you went past about 390 hp. I have seen in Olyzyk's book pictures of DeTomaso sport prototypes being tested but who is to say they weren't being pushed by hand off camera? I don't trust much about racing cars from DeTomaso; there is no Marcel Massini keeping track of all the SNs...

 

Lang Cooper done afterward, a simplified design containing some elements of DeTomaso 70P shape. Pete Brock told me that himself.
1st 70P was rejected by Brock who took it down the road to Fantuzzi while still working for Shelby. I never heard anything about that he was going to import them himself. I think after Shelby his next job was designing an endurance racer for Toyota that was completed and then hidden away.

I think probably all three race apperances were DNS.When I had a list of DeTomaso race cars from an English motoring writer, I was surprised how many DNS he had; maybe he holds the record for race cars built that DNS; not DNF but DNS

I don't think his engines were that big an advance, I too heard from a Ford employee they had some alloy 289 heads from DeTomaso and dropped one and it was so fragile it broke into many pieces. If he would have had a good engine Ford would have used it in the GT40 instead of going to a 427 block in the Mk.II

When the factory sold most of their concept cars and race cars in one fell swoop, were these 70Ps included?

 

Very funny, as most of the cars are one off, no need of track expert

 

If the one-off exists in 3 or 4 copies....

Best,

Jack.

 

Of course, in Cap Town, you are aware of the reality in Italy ...lol

 

Pascal,

In many ways they are quite comparable. For years I used to spend about 1/4th of my time in Italy. I love it, but was often somewhat puzzled as to how it actually made chaos work and the flexibility of rules. Combined with the artisan capabilities Italians possess, it provides an enormously attractive mix. Anything is possible.

Cape Town is much the same. Chaos is everywhere, the rules are even more flexible, and it is a good thing for the world we do not have the same level artisans here, the world would be flooded with Iso and De Tomaso prototypes with impeccable history (of course)

I am surprised not all F1-teams source their mechanics here: A stolen car gets taken apart in the time it takes to do a F1 pitstop.

Best,

Jack.

 

Great!

 

I wonder why DeTomaso completely lost interest in racing & sports cars.

Any clue ?

 

The death of Piers Courage?

 

Or maybe he had his hands full with the Ford partnership moving to larger operations, then Ford involvement in HIS plant and production. Engineers were all over his operations. He may have had his hands full.

note that later he did sell Ghia (1973) , closed down Vignale (1974) and acquired Benelli (1972) , MotoGuzzi (1973), Innocenti (1975) and Maserati (1975)

 

Money selling racing parts and cars is one thing, he wanted to become an industrialist.

 

DeTomaso often lost interest in projects when something newer came along.

 

It is strange that a guy with his background stepped completely out of racing, but this was the era when unions were on strike every other week.

 

Yeah but females is not the topic in question here.

 

^This.

 

Another reason may be that De Tomaso was a small manufacturer, and successful racing programmes are expensive: Not only the development and construction of a competitive car, but in no lesser way the continuous changes in regulations are a money- and time-consuming excersise.

Best,

Jack.

 

He could charm a company like Ford into being his partner
and then do everything he could to poison the relationship.
Like when he was making the Pantera and the Ford engineers complained about the engineering he would say: "I don't know. I am a designer, not an engineer."
but when the designers would complain he would say "I don't know, I am an engineer, not a designer."
He had the last laugh on the Pantera. When Ford stopped importing them he continued to make and improve them.
He hated the unions but liked the GEPI government money they would give him to keep his plant open (rather than pay unemployment benefits).
I think Ford not supporting the racing Pantera was one reason there was not much works support (plus the engines blew up all the time).
I think he holds the record for number of race cars built vs. how few laps they actually turned on a track in a race.
John Mecom once used a DeTomaso formula car for a planter on his front lawn, figuring it was more useful than as a racecar.
All that being said, he was a colorful figure.

 

IMOHO he was a briliant business person, wrote contracts in which he maintained the control he wanted , but had a long memory and often treated people badly. He was not stupid , but rather a business shark.

Ford only had the NorthAmerican market (maybe enven the US only) so he did what he wanted in Europe. He let the engineers fix issues on the line hoping for bigger, better deals. Qvale even had short end of a bad contract where he was responsible to absorb warranty costs.