Headlights.
That car was modified but is not made better.There hasn't been anyone around that can outdo Giugiaro so far. The fact remains that the car was created by de Tomaso to be a racecar for the street, unknown by most. There were many government regulations that were waived to allow the car into the USA, all seen on that mylar strip on top of the hydraulic bottle cover. The headlamps are four inches too low to meet the US specs, and the whole car is designed around their placement.. You can tell when you drive at night as road surface regulations are exaggerated, creating big shadows.
De Tomaso was given time to legalize the headlamps, bring them to a height of 24 inches from ground and to continue production so that the dual lamp system could be implemented. Obviously not great looking but probably a big improvement to the driving experience.
The back-up lamp on the prototype was a paper mock-up, not a real taillamp.
I doubt very much if the production goal was 400, that probably happened to switch the production line over to the Pantera.
The production variations were probably all caused by the fact that de Tomaso was a dealer and had trouble with suppliers.
Much of this is covered in;
>BELLA MANGUSTA,The Italian Art and Design of the De Tomaso Mangusta.
My car is currently in the national Corvette Museum as part of an exhibit featuring foreign cars with Corvette engines.
DICK RUZZIN