Oh, this is a great total to see. Overall, DeTomaso machines typically do not deliver the value they should when you consider their beauty and hand-made Italian designs.
The shortcut of using an American engine has never been kind to the values of classics, with even the Face Vega’s of Paris and many others really not delivering the stratospheric sales prices of Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s of the same provenance and era.
This Mangusta is quite a sinfully delicious design, with a brutality to its nose that was and is a nice counterpoint to the streamlined Daytona Ferrari, pin-sharp Maserati Ghibli and the rounded Bizarrini of the same ethos. What the Mangusta shows is how a bluff nose could indeed be sexy as hell, and offer far better cooling and exposed lamps as well.
All these ideas were well ahead of their time, mind you, as the slant-nose 1970s vogue was coming on-stream in a big was as the Mangusta made its Ford-powered rumble onto the scene in 1969.
The use of a Ford V8 is a double FU to Ferrari, who had just been spanked four years running by Fords and LeMans in the late 1960s. $367,000 is a good buy and a good sale for this machine, which is truly an aesthete’s delight — if not as bankable as some of the better-known Italian marques of then and now.
RM Monaco 2014 Highlights – 1969 DeTomaso Mangusta
Lot 166
1969 De Tomaso Mangusta
To be auctioned on Saturday, May 10, 2014
Sold for €268.800
Tom Burkart is the founder and managing editor of Car-Revs-Daily.com, an innovative and rapidly-expanding automotive news magazine.
He holds a Journalism JBA degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Tom currently resides in Charleston, South Carolina with his two amazing dogs, Drake and Tank.
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