De Tomaso Returns With Ford-Powered $1.8 Million Supercar

You’ve probably heard the story about Ford and Carroll Shelby teaming up to beat Ferrari at the 2024 Hours of Le Mans in the 1960s. They made a movie about it, after all. “Ford v Ferrari.” Ring a bell?The legendary race car builder helped Ford develop the GT40 prototype into a winner that claimed victory four straight times from 1966 through 1969. But just before he went to work with Ford to defeat one Italian automaker, he had been helping another.De Tomaso was working working on a prototype racing car of its own in 1965, but it needed more power, so it enlisted Mr. Shelby’s assistance to find a suitable engine. He secured a competition Ford V8 for it and also had his designer, Peter Brock, contribute to the design of the car.The result was an open-top roadster called the P70, but Mr. Shelby dropped out of the project to team up with the much bigger Ford project and the P70 all but died on the vine. It competed in single race and just one more modified version of the car was built before it was shelved altogether.The P72 is built with carbon fiber construction. De Tomaso AutomobiliDe Tomaso would continue to use Ford engines, however, and in 1971 launched the famous Pantera, which was sold in the U.S. through Lincoln-Mercury dealerships. Ford went as far as to buy De Tomaso outright that year from its founder, Alejandro de Tomaso, but sold it back to him in 1974.De Tomaso never quite made the big time and muddled through the next couple of decades building the Pantera, racing cars and even owned Maserati for a while, but in 2014 was purchased by a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm intent on its revival.More than a decade later, the first fruit of its labor has been revealed and it is steeped in the brand’s history.The P72 was directly inspired by the P70 and is very much a new take on the curvaceous styling of a 1960s Italian race car built for the road. The impossibly low coupe has its engine mounted behind the two-seat cockpit and it is a familiar one.The P72 is powered by a Ford V8 engine. De Tomaso AutomobiliThe 5.0-liter V8 is based on the engine in the current Ford Mustang and was developed by NASCAR engine builder Roush Performance. There hasn’t been an Italian-American supercar collaboration like this since, well, the Pantera.De Tomaso aimed to create a modern vehicle with the mechanical purity of a classic. It is constructed with a carbon fiber chassis, but features a six-speed manual transmission with a clutch pedal and exposed linkage for its shifter.You won’t find a touchscreen on the dashboard, just mechanical gauges with Roman numerals on them. Milled aluminum parts are everywhere and finished in rose gold on the first show car that was built. The only hint of technology is a rearview mirror that doubles as a backup camera display.De Tomaso hasn’t released performance specifications, but it rides on a racing car-style double wishbone suspension and the engine is rated at 700 hp, so it should be equally fast cutting corners and screaming down long straights.The interior features mechanical gauges and rose gold metal trim. De Tomaso Automobili“With its flowing lines and analogue soul, the P72 celebrates the romance of the 1960s, a time when cars were sculpted as art and driven with intent,” is how the company describes it.De Tomaso only plans to build 72 and, as you might imagine, they don’t come cheap. The starting price is listed at $1.8 million before any personal touches are added, but put your checkbook away, because they have all been pre-sold.Don’t worry, though, it’s already working on the next car, which teaser images suggest is a track-only or racing version of the P72. Hopefully this time around, it will get to build more than one.

De Tomaso Returns With Ford-Powered $1.8 Million Supercar

De Tomaso Returns With Ford-Powered $1.8 Million Supercar

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