Mangusta build data.

According to registries there were only 8 (or 10) RHD factory built Mangustas. VIN 1288 (ealiest identified) thru 1302.

Odds are those were done / finished in Germany. The factory (rscorse) or Roland Jaekel (he purchased all left over inventory from the German distributor) may have individual car build sheets but even those are sketchy at best.

Are you at liberty to tell us the VIN?

8MA1284 and 8MA1300 are lost in Australia

Here is what I know about 8MA1284; formerly owned by Ken Messanger in South Australia till around 1995 (was Blue), then passed on to Neil Ashmead who did the Targas in it, he did the mods to the car and when the gearbox failed it went to a company to have work done, he then commited suicide and the car has remained in bits with the company since, so who actually owns it is in dispute. It is now Yellow and in pieces awaiting rebuilding, the gearbox is in a bad way and it has some body damage as well as many mods done to it for Targa work. (it ran a couple of times in Targa Tasmania and New Zealand and South Australia)

As far as RHD Mangustas the 2 best guys to contact in Australia would be Terry Griggs or Peter Bell.

***Addendum: 8MA1300 found in Australia , Purchased by JamesA in June '13 from OldTimerClassic Car

Cool pic.

To hopefully clarify:

From what I understand, the 10 RH drive cars all went to Australia, and were the very, very last Mangustas ever made.

Hence the reference by Denis to "Finished in Germany".

Many thanks folks.

I gather ther isn't some kind of"factory" list which shows the chassis numbers of all the cars made and LH or RH drive details or any other details for that matter?
Denis C, I don't know eitehr of the two chaps you mentioned worth having a chat to - do you know how to contact them, and whether it would be Ok to pass those details on to me? Thanks again.

JMD .. personal message sent

Denis

JMD, an easy way to check if original RHD is to look at the wiper spindles. I have not seen a car that has been converted and gone to the trouble of moving the pivots. The RHD cars have them ofsett to the left of centre and LHD cars have them offset to the right. The blades are also the reverse of more modern wipers in that they wipe away from the driver as cars now generally end the sweep with the blade vertical in front of drivers. There are other differences with L/R H/drive mostly interior ie offset tunnel, Indicators stalk same side as driven.

According to one article, the last 55 Mangustas built (which includes all the RHD ones) used Mercedes e-brake handles; they were only partially built as delivered from DeTomaso and finished near Stuttgart, Germany. But since I've not seen a late 'Goose to compare to an early, I don't know what visual difference this makes; in case of damage, this info may come in handy for obtaining replacement parts.

Thanks everyone,
Yes, from what I can gather only 10 (or 12) RH drive cars came "ex factory" and yes the last 50 or so cars both LH and RH drive used MB hand brake levers/handles.
Also seems that there isn't much around in the way of Factory issued registers against which one can verify original delivery specs for individual vehicles.
So...forums like this are pretty valuable!

The last time I called Herb Grass he was converting his car to right hand drive. He inquired about buying a conversion kit from GHIA as he was going to Australia. They wanted $150.00 and offered to send him the remaining four as well, so he took them.

He went to Australia to work for Ford, painted the car, as I recall some kind of pink pearl, from there he went to India and I understand took the car.

He eventually came back to the US, lived in Phoenix and passed away a few years ago.

DICK RUZZIN

Hi Dick, The car you are talking about is 8 MA-718. I have owner this car since 1988. Herb Grasse purchased the car in 1970/1 and converted the car to right hand drive in Phoenix prior to bringing it to Australia in 1976. He was in Melbourne and finally moved back to the States in 1989. I found the car in Sydney after it had a short ownership between Herb and myself. I think the car when original was black and under Herbs ownership changed to Silver and then orange. In development work they tried a few new wheel colour techniques on the car and this is where the pearl colour may have come from. Herb did try and keep the car as original as possible. My intent is to return the car to left hand drive and restore it to original. No additional parts came with the car. Thanks Mike

Quite interesting story about RHD Mangustas. I have owned mine (LHD) without noticing the following: In the process of restoration I noticed that the car is Assymetric !! Meaning the center shiftter console is heavily biased to the left, so the Dirver has a lot of Space and the Copilot is really cramped. It is about 55/45 split.

Besides, being that narrow the copilot side, the seat can not afford to be totaly resting in the firewall so RHD drivers mus be (even) shorter than LHD Divers

yes the driver`s tub is always larger. It does not matter whether RHD or LHD.