DeTomaso’s rare, forgotten Vallelunga was the Pantera’s rough draft — Petersen Automotive Museum

It was pretty much unavoidable that the DeTomaso Vallelunga would be built in little numbers, since it was a high priced and compromised device from an unknown model. By the time the remaining Vallelunga was produced in 1965, just 50 experienced been manufactured by Ghia alongside with three aluminum-bodied protoypes and 5 alloy-bodied competitors autos.

Just a person of the Vallelungas produced was correct-hand drive and it was produced for Colonel Ronnie Hoare, Ferrari importer for the U.K. His strategy was to healthy a 148-hp Lotus twin-cam motor to create a genuine pocket-sized road rocket, but he found the Vallelunga simply just far too beneath-produced to be practical. He then bought the motor vehicle on in 1970, by which point DeTomaso was on the verge of unveiling his very best-known automobile, the Pantera.

Exceptional and obscure, Vallelungas are the most precious automobiles in the DeTomaso legacy. Nevertheless a museum-grade (#1 situation) Mangusta specced with the bigger-output engine and constructed in between 1967 and 1970 tops out at $325,000, a Vallelunga in these types of much better-than-factory problem is worthy of $390,000. For a driver-quality instance with a number of scuffs and bruises, you are on the lookout at $245,000—more than $80K more than the most useful Pantera (a 1988 GT design in #1 problem). The to start with of the DeTomaso road cars and trucks barely ever pop up for sale, both.

Although imperfect at its debut, the Vallelunga proven the system of mid-engine Ford ability less than putting Ghia system function that the later on Mangusta and Pantera would render in better size and production count. 4 yrs right after the roadster debuted at Turin, DeTomaso would draw in the eye of Lee Iacocca, then Ford’s government vice president, and leverage its Lincoln-Mercury dealer community for much less fragile, extra obtainable choices. As a assertion of DeTomaso’s wild, unique eyesight, on the other hand, the Vallelunga will generally stand aside.

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