Italy’s De Tomaso has returned and is still making high-performance vehicles. The first is the P72 supercar, which was revealed in 2019. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2023.
De Tomaso’s P72 project is not the only one in progress. De Tomaso has been involved in a different project for some time and will reveal it on December 9.
All we have is a teaser video with the title “The Paradigm Thread.” The video features two cars, both in the same shade of turquoise. One of the cars is the modern P72 while the other car looks to be a P70, a one-off car built by De Tomaso in 1965 and the inspiration behind the P72.
You may not be familiar with the history of De Tomaso. The P70 resulted from a partnership between Carroll Shelby, founder of De Tomaso. The race car was inspired by De Tomaso’s Vallelunga sportscar, but it had a Ford V-8 engine and Peter Brock’s bespoke body.
De Tomaso P70 Sport 5000 (De Tomaso P70) during the 1965 Turin automobile show
De Tomaso P72
It was planned to race the P70 in the United States Road Racing Championship. However, the plan fell apart before the P70 even drove its first mile. Shelby had just been picked up by Ford in order to compete for the GT40 programme and was forced out of the project. De Tomaso presented the car under Ghia De Tomaso Sport 5000 at the 1965 Turin Auto Show.
The 1966 Mugello Grand Prix would be the P70’s first race. However, it was retired after the first lap. Alejandro de Tomaso owned the car for over a decade before selling it off to someone in California.
It wasn’t an inefficient project. It was the chassis that ended up being used for the P70. Mangusta is the Italian word for “mongoose,” a small mammal that can kill a cobra, a not-so-subtle dig at Shelby and its own Cobra sports car.
The modern P72 will have a carbon-fiber monocoque body, manual transmission and V-8 power. Similar to the P70, Ford will source the V-8. This time it will be the Coyote-5.0-liter V-8. Roush will tune the V-8. The production will only be 72 units.
