Italian sports-car company De Tomaso has been revived once again with the unveiling of a gasoline-only hypercar that references the brand's racing past.
The P72 was shown at the UK's Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday ahead of first deliveries planned in late 2020 or early 2021. The car will start from 750,000 euros ($841,000) and is limited to 72 examples.
De Tomaso was bought in 2015 by the Hong Kong-based company Ideal Team Ventures for just over 1 million euros following an earlier failed revival attempt that saw the owner arrested in Italy for misuse of public funds.
New owner Norman Choi (also known as Choi Sung-Fung) is a car collector who created the P72 to satisfy his own wishes as an enthusiast.
"The P72 combines classic design with modern engineering. This is the packaging I would much prefer to have," he told Automotive News Europe at Goodwood.
The car updates the design of the short-lived 1965 De Tomaso P70 sports car from 1965, which was initially created with the help of famed U.S. tuner Carol Shelby. Shelby's exit from the program angered De Tomaso founder Alejandro de Tomaso so much he named his Mangusta (Mongoose) supercar after the only predator of the Cobra, the name of Shelby's most famous car.
As well as the retro styling, the P72 keeps with tradition by including a manual sequential racing gearbox as well as analogue dials. The car is designed by Jowyn Wong, owner of Wyn Design based in the northern English town of Pontefract, Yorkshire.
Kerrigan Advisors’ proprietary annual OEM Survey of over 100 executives reveals that the majority of respondents are worried about the financial impact of Chinese automakers’ growing global market share, and most expect that the EV transition to be slower than expected. The survey also queried executives on their outlooks for dealership valuations and profitability, as well as their expectations for the future of dealer networks and facility requirements.
The modern engineering referenced by Choi includes a carbon-fiber chassis that's shared with the hypercar created by Choi's other sports-car company, Apollo. Choi bought Apollo in 2016 from former Audi Sport head Roland Gumpert, and commissioned Germany's HWA to build the Apollo IE hypercar. HWA was created by Hans Werner Aufrecht, the founder of Mercedes tuning arm AMG.
De Tomaso has not disclosed production plans for the P72, but production at HWA is a possibility. The company has not ruled out building it in De Tomaso's originating country of Italy.
The engine plan has not been announced, but De Tomaso used V-8s for all models that followed the brand's debut sports car from 1963, the four-cylinder Vallelunga.
De Tomaso's most famous car is arguably the Pantera coupe, which used Ford V-8 engines and was sold in the U.S at Ford dealers in an ultimately doomed partnership between the brands.
De Tomaso's current revival is more likely to succeed because it does not need to make money. "It woud be nice, but it's not a critical element," Choi said. "So, I have room to be able to build a car in the way I that I think is worthy of the name."
