This Friday Bonhams will auction a car that only a connaisseur will be familiar with: A De Tomaso.
De Tomaso’s are the definition of cool for many car collectors.
Founded by Alejandro De Tomaso, a race driver from Argentina – De Tomaso* founded the automobile company that bears his name to build racing cars and prototypes. In 1959 he decided to start building automobiles for the road and introduced the Vallelunga (the names comes from the Italian circuit) in the early 1960s.
The first road car, the Vallelunga was based heavily on De Tomaso’s experience as a racing driver. Thus many elements of the Vallelunga are inspired from racing. The body was made out of fiber glass (making the car super light), powered by the 4cylinder 1.5 litre Ford Engine and styled by the very young (at that time) Giugiaro and bodied by Ghia. Only more than 50 cars were made. All of them had independent suspension and disc brakes.
The car being sold by Bonhams is a left hand drive car in wonderful yellow. The car was extensively restored in the early 2000s and came 2nd in class at Villa d’Este in 2004. The estimate of Bonhams for this very rare and beautiful car is €320-360’000. Complete info on the car here.
(Credit: Main picture and all pictures belong to Bonhams).
*De Tomaso was a very clever business man and built an empire buying up important names in the automobile world like: Ghia (bought in 1968) and Vignale (both coach building firms) Moto Guzzi (Motorcycles) and Innocenti (cars) and Maserati (bought it in 1975)- which he bought from Citroen for close to nothing – he paid not even $200 – but took on a mountain of debt. He later sold it at a profit to Fiat in the early 1990s.
The shape of the Vallelunga reminds me of the Dino 206 strongly. It is a beautiful car.
Perhaps the coolest part of the car is the open gate gearbox (that Ferrari would become famous for starting with the 250 GTO). I think it is a piece of art in itself.
The body of the entire car is made of fiber glass – as a result this car weight only more than 700kg.
The Vallelunga is a mid-engined car powered by a 1.4L Ford 4 cylinder engine. Enough for 105bhp and plenty given that this car weighed only 700kg. This particular car is equipped with two weber carburettors which are original to the car.
Another view of the front. Just perfect. Italian styling in the 1960s just does not go wrong.
Even the font of the writing is my taste 100%. Simply beautiful. If only I had more space in my garage.
