Chris and Herbert, Your cars turned out beautifully. You should be very pleased, and I hope you both keep and enjoy the cars for many years to come. Thanks for sharing the pictures. I'm sure I am not alone in wanting to see more. Mark
Some decades ago i went to the DeTomaso plant and saw the first Mangusta, the show car in gold, in a pile of rubbish. I noticed the dashboard had a plexiglass sheet covering all the gauges, some of which were painted on.It had no engine or wheels. It was full of trash. Imagine my surprise years later when I see a general PR puff piece on the Mangusta in UK magazine Italian car accompanied by pictures of this same car with a running drive train. Then i saw on a website called something like Mangusta International some pics of it including a chassis plate and it was listed as something like MA0001. Now my question is: If it wasn't running when I saw it and never ran during its original show career, this leads me to conclude that at some later point in time the body was dropped onto an existing running drivetrain of a production car. A car which, when it was made, had it own SN. So I am wondering how they can call that the first one made SN wise if it uses a chassis made later on after production started? Also was the car sold and who has it now?
Hey, when you are the Manufacturer you can do what you want. Many other manufacturer have rebodied prototype or scrapped them. In this case the original buck was not important at the time but (apparently) in the early 80's they found the time to make it a driver. The family still owns the car. They kept a few milestone pieces.
Unikat says the 1/12th scale Mangusta should be available soon according to their facebook. They fixed the wheels. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The Mangusta's roof line is surprisingly low; even lower than the Stratos as seen here. Image Unavailable, Please Login
When I visited the factory in the late 80's and 2000 I am pretty sure looking at drivetrain details this prototype was drivable. The whole " factory " or employees, however was a bit of a shambles with little to no knowledge of previous types and no records available. I do believe that there are some limited details of Mangusta's somewhere out there with the De Tomaso descendants.
Congrats cnpapa, stunning ! Enjoy every moment, you deserve it and thanks for the photos ! Silvsurf: terrific in metallic green ! It just fits imho. Like a snake ready to attack ( for a snake eater ^^ )
Almost completed restoration of this original Right Hand drive Goose. Plenty of bodywork completed and happy with the result. Enjoy... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Stunning to say the least! Please tell us about those rear wheels. I was chasing those when I had my 'goose', nearly scored a pair but discovered they were not an identical match, so passed. 10"? They fill the rear wheel wells so perfectly! Bravo! And the steering wheel? I like the 'dish' - factory?
Hi Mike, well spotted with the wheels. These are my driving set as 50 year old magnesium wheels would not be my first choice to drive on. They are 11inch at rear and 9's at front. Made by Group 4/ compomotive a few years ago and a pretty good match for the originals which I have. The steering wheel is factory as I presume they ran out of the gorgeous Leather/ wood wheels and at least the last 5 cars came with this dished Ferraro wheel. Better for driving with the dish as knees do not get in the way so much. Basically everything now works as it should when it left the factory. Mike
Hi Mike, excellent idea concerning the rims. I checked the website of compomotive and not surprisingly they do not offer Mangusta rims directly. I suppose this was a special order of yours? Do you remember the price per rim? Material is alloy? Herbert
Gent, Just to clarify, First cars in effect did have magnesium alloy wheels. 7in front and 7 1/2 at rear, then the rears were widened to 8in. The later cars have Aluminium alloy rims 7in front and 8in rear. I will build a file and show you guys later. Denis
I should have figured out those were not originals, just too clean and straight (as were the factory/later alloy versions). Any uber rare (guessing around a dozen sets ever cast?) 'factory real' wide 10" originals would have been early, thus magnesium, thus rough and gnarly. Those remakes do look great in 11" width, and safety factor = nice! Are you running euro ta radials? I know Denis knows Mangusta wheels (as well as EVERY other Mangusta part). There were quite a few variant Campagnolo wheels for so few cars made.
... and it was quite a challenge to find original magnesium alloy wheels for my car, but I finally did . Herbert
Herbert, Not sure if your car is early enough to have been shoed in Magnesium. I would be curious to have all rims weighed. Best Denis
Hi Denis, I hear what you say re the material being aluminium, however the composition of the alloy was not the best. The rims do seem very porous and quite prone to corrosion and bubbling if the finish is not applied in a same manner as finishing Magnesium wheels. I have looked at both 8 MA 718 and 1302's wheels and they appear to be the same material and I would suggest same weight, so probably an alloy of mostly aluminium and whatever else they used in the late 60's? I checked my size again and the Group 4 wheels are 8inch fronts and 10inch rears. I measured with the tyres on which is not very accurate! This batch of rims was made in mid 2013 and they were about 1400 pounds for the set. I think they made around a dozen sets at the time and then after some problems between Compomotive and Group 4 I am not sure if any can be made now. I am running Goodridge TA's with 275/60/15 on the rear and 225/60/15's on front and I believe the rubber compound these tyres are now made from is far superior to what it was in the 70's.
