DeTomaso’s rare, forgotten Vallelunga was the Pantera’s rough draft — Petersen Automotive Museum
[ad_1]
It was almost inevitable that the DeTomaso Vallelunga would be built in little figures, since it was a pricey and compromised machine from an mysterious manufacturer. By the time the closing Vallelunga was created in 1965, just 50 experienced been built by Ghia together with 3 aluminum-bodied protoypes and 5 alloy-bodied competitors autos.
Just just one of the Vallelungas produced was ideal-hand push and it was made for Colonel Ronnie Hoare, Ferrari importer for the U.K. His system was to in shape a 148-hp Lotus twin-cam engine to develop a correct pocket-sized highway rocket, but he discovered the Vallelunga simply too less than-developed to be viable. He then bought the car or truck on in 1970, by which level DeTomaso was on the verge of unveiling his best-identified auto, the Pantera.
Rare and obscure, Vallelungas are the most useful autos in the DeTomaso legacy. However a museum-grade (#1 affliction) Mangusta specced with the bigger-output engine and crafted concerning 1967 and 1970 tops out at $325,000, a Vallelunga in such much better-than-manufacturing facility problem is truly worth $390,000. For a driver-quality case in point with a number of scuffs and bruises, you’re on the lookout at $245,000—more than $80K additional than the most worthwhile Pantera (a 1988 GT product in #1 problem). The very first of the DeTomaso highway cars and trucks hardly ever pop up for sale, possibly.
Even though imperfect at its debut, the Vallelunga set up the formula of mid-motor Ford electricity underneath putting Ghia human body work that the later Mangusta and Pantera would render in increased dimension and creation depend. 4 decades after the roadster debuted at Turin, DeTomaso would entice the eye of Lee Iacocca, then Ford’s government vice president, and leverage its Lincoln-Mercury supplier network for fewer fragile, far more obtainable choices. As a statement of DeTomaso’s wild, original eyesight, however, the Vallelunga will constantly stand aside.
[ad_2]
Source url
