QVALE MANGUSTA: THE FAILED RENAISSANCE
At the end of the 1990s one of the most controversial roadsters of the decade was born
Towards the end of the 90s, the DeTomaso company was trying to get out of a big production crisis. To atchieve this, the company required the help of Qvale, a car company founded in 1999 by Bruce Qvale, the US importer for Maserati and a great friend by Alejandro De Tomaso.
The Original De Tomaso Biguà ( Photo Credits : www.wheelsage.org )
From this agreement it came to the decision to put the Biguà concept car in line, which would have assumed the name of Mangusta in honor of the famous sports car of the 60s.
The original De Tomaso Mangusta ( Photo Credits : www.rmsothebys-cache.azureedge.ne )
Produced in the Roadster configuration, it shared many components with the fourth-generation Ford Mustang, including the floor, the five-speed manual transmission, the dashboard, the steering wheel and the engine.
The Ford Modular V8 ( Photo Credits : www.wheelsage.org )
The latter was a Ford Modular V8 4.6 from the power of 305 hp with torque of 407 Nm. Thus configured it was able to accelerate the car from 0 to 100 km/h in 6 seconds, with a top speed of 280 km/h.
Marcello Gandini, designer of the Mangusta ( Photo Credits : www.dupontregistry.com )
The famous Marcello Gandini designed it with extremely detailed features. Shortly before going into production, however, Qvale broke off relations with De Tomaso and decided to produce the car with its own brand and to direct its sale especially on the US market.
Produced in 270 copies up to 2001, the Mangusta was not as successful as the company wished it to be. Rather, the company was forced to close its plants and to sell them to the MG, which only provided technical assistance for the cars already produced.
Thanks to Valentina Zanola for the cooperation
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Comments (13)
It reminds me of a hybrid between a Fiat Coupè and a Fiat Barchetta
You are right
Except that both of those are pretty cars
No wonder, they didn't sell many of them. It looks so wrong from about every angle...
Perhaps one of Gandini's least successful cars
I liked the concept, but the end product missed the mark by quite some margin. Ugly and overweight...
Wow that's not the best look sports car made
Yeah
Which evolved into the MG X Power SV....
Exactly
Another ugly failure, and very over hyped.