Reply to "MANGUSTA HANDLING MYSTERY"

Regarding the chassis, looking back at the early magazine articles it is apparent that the chassis which is extremely sensitive like a race car, on the cars tested. They were not set up correctly.

What is a shame is how ignorant the writers were to assume that if a car torque steers under acceleration it was intended to be that way. Same with the shift linkage, so easy to adjust once you figure it out, there were so many complaints about that and the assumption was that they were all that way as an engineering deficiency.

The Mangusta design has created such a powerful image of the car that it really is a distraction that hides the race car chassis. Too bad the chassis was flawed and communicated by a press that was ignorant about the new mid-engine architecture.

The simple flaws in the cars tested were turned into some kind of negative regarding DeTomaso that was widely communicated by the press. They clearly did not understand the enormous task of designing, building and manufacturing a car, if so they would have given him great credit for his achievements in spite of the flaws.

He did not have the processes or resources to correct problems as Ford did.

DICK RUZZIN