Mangusta on Chasing Classic Cars- Find the Errors!

I will have to watch.  Wayne has become a defacto "expert" with all cars and people actually believe him.  He makes his money selling overly priced cars to guys with too much money, restoring cars with guys with too much money, and getting paid to do a TV show.  I guess it's good work if you can find it.  You have to admit the show is at least entertaining to know he spews BS now and again.  I find the barn finds at least entertaining.

I thought that the show was pretty well done. At least Carrini isn't a clown like some of the characters on these automotive reality shows. Of course at the end of the day, Carrini is still a car salesman and he is going to make a profit one way or the other.

..Haven't seen the episode, have noticed that F40 has had Mangustas over the years. The in-dash AC vents started with 8ma1100, by this time the half-globe Carello marker lights were replaced with the flat tops for sure. The Spider and and first real car (guessed as 8ma502 on Provamo), used the Lancia Fulvia elliptical side markers but 508 shows the round half-globe Carellos as used on early 850 Fiats.  Silver suspension and a yellow tire jack, just kind of the typical embellishments added in the garage that anybody restoring a car today should be quick to correct...To us, glaring stuff--no Pebble Beach type of research or 3000 restoration hours needed to get right... 

The number of colors on the Mangusta paint wheel had something like 4 or 5 variations of Red alone...The Mort Sahl interview (Road Test 1969) quotes 23 colors ("no duplications and no choice") at least in the early US imports. Good news, there isn't a bad color for these cars. 

At the 2016 concorso Italiano, the judges were grouping to review the huge group of Miuras and I overheard one judge ask 'what's our objective here anyway, the cars here are so perfect...'  Mass production Corvettes obsess about the location of the paint drips on brackets, my brother's Auburn boattail has the correct "W" head bolts and meticulously preserved weld marks on the fenders.  Carrini may be an expert with Model A's or Packards, but specific knowledge about every marque would be superhuman... What is "correct" in the 401 cars included what, 5 different dashes? And he would be right if he suggested that originality has largely not been a priority for most DeTomaso owners. Just a few years ago, we weren't even sure which way the carburetor should face Lee 

WHAT??  There IS a correct way for the carb to face???? 

Happy Easter to all.

Steve

Just watched it and you got most of the glaring items...  I did notice that the speedo was in KPH not MPH, so that might account for the clear marker lenses, the dash was not mouse fur, they used aftermarket cooling fans up front, deleted the round window crank access covers from the door panels...  heat shielding under the coil was more modern...  the diamond pattern in the covering under the frunk hood was off...  voltage regulator was newer model...   switches on dash definitely didn't have labels...    what was the twisty knob between the A/C vent and instruments on the dash?  Oh...  is that for the A/C?   Sorry, mine has the underdash unit...  fan shroud on the A/C condenser is different from mine, but mine is earlier... 

overall, from my moderate to limited knowledge of such details, the finished product looked gorgeous...  perhaps I missed a lot of little things, but I enjoyed the episode and thought the car turned out better than expected.

MH

…voltage regulator was different---but you weren’t really looking closely 😊 Steve mentioned and he’s right, the leather on the dash is wrong (should be full natural top grain, a smooth split hide just ain’t right…). And is that headliner (and are the sunvisors) black? And is that the right interior mirror? And are the toggle switches slanted the wrong way (the before picture had them pointed to the passenger, after picture is pointed to the driver...).   Ah, by season 15, at least Wayne has given the DEEtomaso a little respect  

Any guesses on the chassis number? Starting at 8ma1100 (AC in dash) and before the German builds (with parking brake on the floor) leaves a pretty short list of candidates, maybe only 25 cars, and maybe over half those 2 headlight models?   Lee

OK, you guys are good!   I missed the (very obvious) Euro gauges...so that explains the clear turn signal lens!  It was way too early in the morning for me to go back and re-watch the episode, but I did save it on the DVR for now. I was counting on more feedback...

As mentioned, most of these things are nits...that can be corrected if one wanted to take this over the top for concours.......not like the body was all cut up with a giant air scoop sticking out of the rear of the roof and hatches with big giant flares on the wheel arches!     There are a few of those already.......don't need more!

That owner is one tall guy......the ebrake handle on the shin looks painful!!!

OK, Lee pointed out the parking brake change pre-German builds...which this does not have.     What I noticed were the rear shock tower braces added, from the shock tower to the engine compartment wall.   Also, the boxed supports/stiffeners on the bottoms of the lower front a-arms. 

EDIT after corrected on # of German cars being 52 not 75...     These changes are a couple of things that started sometime after my car *878 and the manufacturing location change (last 52 cars?)   So roughly 190th (my car) + 52 (German cars)= 242 -401(total build-ish)= 159 ish cars built from around April-May 69 (My car known window and brake dates)  to end of Italian production is where this car lies!    When the extra rear supports were added could tighten that window up even more..... I thought it was in the #1000-1100 area.....

What we probably can't tell is if these were the 3rd or 4th variety of lower a-arm that had the boxed lower a-arm supports AND the relocated lower shock bolts to accept Koni shocks ala Pantera (it did appear to have Koni shocks!) .........(to clear the lower bushing of the shock and uses a larger bolt hole)    I am not sure if this was a German thing......... But I do have a new set of these lower arms which could easily have been left over from the last production........       My car had been in an accident early on, and had one original lower arm (under reinforced!) and one boxed  reinforcement version......

Here's my rundown on lower a-arms:

#1) Has strip of flat steel welded on edge to lower arm for reinforcement, but doesn't extend across ball joint cup to reinforce that area (ball joints were busting off end of a-arm!)

#1A) This is a guess..... That the flat steel reinforcement was extended out over the ball joint cup to prevent breakage.......but I have not found any of these yet......

#2) Has boxed reinforcement (actually a "u" shaped piece)  added full length of arm out across bottom of u-joint cup.  Standard shock mount.

#3) Same as #2 but with larger shock mounts to clear bigger lower shock bushing and relocated/larger diameter hole for shock bolt.

So I need to go back and watch this episode again.....just for grins and "Goose envy" factor.......!   It was nice to see a Goose "outed" finally without all the regurgitated "bad" reports about an otherwise beautiful beast!!!

Cheers!

You got me on the regulator...  I didn't see the green tape and cried foul too soon...

A shot of the original documents shown 8 mins into the video.

Rotated 180 and zoomed in:           (red line is by me)

Looks like 8MA-1190 to me

At 8:23 he says it's car #361...    so...   361 x 2 = 722       722 + 500 = 1222

1222 is not in the registry...   but 361 could've been something completely irrelevant  I've only seen references to the digits of the VIN on the insides of door panels and such with mine...

I'm gonna go with 8MA-1190 since that appears to be what's on the paper.

Here's the Headliner and Visors:

On the dash, I was referring to the top of the dash, not the face of it...  shouldn't the top be of mouse fur?  This is clearly NOT mouse fur:

Here is the Frunk underside:

The best shot I could find of the rearview mirror:

Also noticed the horn nubbin is black instead of chrome and the rubber is missing from the gas pedal:

Perhaps the (Spare Tire?) dimple in the Frunk could help narrow down it's # if it's NOT 1190:

That's all I got...

MH

M!ke, I was just kidding---you always are so humble but you have a sharp eye...! Yeah, that's the Bosch regulator---but not on top of the Bitumen in the engine bay (and well, I replaced the panels with rubber, its not exactly right either...). I haven't seen the episode (not available in Taiwan!). The car does look great, always fun to see a Goose come together. And voila, 8MA1190 ist wahrscheinlich  scheinbar gut---I tried looking at Provamo to see when floor mounted E-brake was introduced, appears to be in 1224 I'm curious if anybody knows for sure when the first German car was made.  Also, would be interesting to know what differences were made in small components in the German cars. Denis mentioned before that the door locks were set by the handle, for example...The mirror here is different than that ARCA used on earlier cars....The AC compressor is a Tecumseh (can tell by the tag) but the ports are on the sides? Lee

die Deutschen autos sind natürlich besser...

(but I might be a bit biased towards German cars)

MH

I got screen shot of this sheet on one of Silvestro's auctions.   Loosely translated (courtesy of Google)  it says: '' We hereby declare that the car DE TOMASO MANGUSTA is homologated for the transport of 2 people (driver included) as shown in test report n232 / to-68 issued by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation of Turin.''

My assumption would then be that it may have been the 361th car built / the attached sheet would say 232th road tested.

As to the compressor it should be a Tecumseh HG500, it appears to be correct, but it should be painted black and the hoses are not in the correct location. Also note the panel where the regulator (green or yellow tape sealed) should be black with undercoat and there are asbestos heat shields (not seen) low where the headers run close to the gas tank. Plus note the rear body triangulation bars should be black not chrome.

ON the TV car, there was an extra little bracket attached to the top of the alt adjuster......  I couldn't place what it was for except perhaps an attempt at hose management or so...........

I found an EARLY pic(s) of my car as found back in '95 (sounds so weird to type that...!) after I had just dragged it home(!) and it clearly shows the same side provision for connections.   I had forgotten about this!

I had forgotten about this picture as well!   See if you can spot all the problems that I had to resolve....no wait.....that's not relevant to this post..... enjoy!

One thing.... Alternator adjuster is only one I have seen like it (I know it is custom made).....with alt in RH most location on bellhousing.....and wiring is too short to put it in center "proper" location....and it still has original connectors on it......   ??????    I don't actually know if it was a "smog pump" car or not.....

My mileage varied!

Ciao!

Denis, oh, so interesting: so was 1190 the first German car (and not necessarily This Car)?   The peculiar date, is that really January 22 1980??  What I am guessing is that 8ma1190 was then the first built in Germany, and that there was some kind of formal recognition of the new manufacturing location....That the letter that M!ke captured and expanded was a generic letter, not specific to this one car...the date in that one (I suppose is the last handwritten line) I cannot make sense of either...

(And M!ke, I remember when I finally got my '79 4re 308 on the road, and quit driving the '79 928 P-car...the Porsche was fabulous, technically a hundred years better than the Ferrari...but oh, the sound of webers and a flat crank...!. Nicht besser, nur anders...!)

Steve, I have to say that I enjoyed this episode, and CCC is one of the cars shows I generally enjoy!  Reading this thread is as entertaining as the show was!  You all are soo smart!   In the end I think this Mangusta is a beautiful example of a stunningly beautiful design.  

Just curious for all you experts, there was a lot of discussion about color and comments that there may not have been a stock "pallete" of Mangusta colors. Is that what you all understand as well?

Stay safe everyone!

Dennis

Dennis,

Thanks for the compliment to the gang!   I think the biggest boner statement in an otherwise great display of one of our marque, was that it was "hard to find information"........... Wayne stepped on his weenie here.....!!!     I was gonna say something else, but it could have been construed as "political in nature".......

There was/is a couple of versions of GOose color charts.....from the factory advertisement with one of each color on each page (need to go back and look at it to back up my words here....) or at least "most" of the colors that we see most often, to a full scale color swatch collection of many more options. I think this latter piece came out late in the game......if memory serves me....     It is interesting to see what was available......

BUT, IMHO, I would venture that most were painted by the factory for the dealerships.....not necessarily direct customers......from the original stories I have heard, most saw the car in the dealership first.....and bought it.  Again, just my opinion.....

DeTomaso would also paint to fit a customer.....if the beans were there! Perhaps this happened more in Europe where the dealers were closer to the factory.....

As I also stated, Wayne went on to blather about black and maroon being very popular colors......which I find contrary to what we know is out there!!!

Ciao! Stay safe yourself! Hope to be able to see youse guys soon!
Steve

(Goose paint colors) I'd guess that Ghia kept the same palette of colours for Ghibli and Mangusta...here are almost 7 that could be considered "red". I'm sure the question now, just how did British Motor Cars take orders?! 

Maybe about 10 years ago, my brother went to see a Goose for sale in Houston, River Oaks area that he described as "eggplant" color. If I remember correctly, it was owned by Carlos Slim (or at least, at his house). He thought it was a terrible color in person...But '1302 still looks great--Lee

ps. interesting snapshot of what people bought in the 60's, vs. the cars we remember...dominant colors were by far blue and silver ! From the Ferrari 330 registry. 

Ok, caught it on Youtube...definitely my favorite CCC ever...so much fun, esp. decisions about the paint color rang home (I decided on Rosso Corsa -6 as well...the original Rosso Fuoco is too orange...Rosso Corsa used on 308's a little blue, the Rosso Corsa 300-12 used on F40's a big orange, so Rosso Corsa 300-6 was just right)... But the line here when the customer is surprised with something he didn't ask for "What have you done with my car?!" was hilarious. Yeah, Doug Pray suggested going with single coat paint instead of color/clear on my car, but at least he was right about it for the era of the car.  Dick R. has talked about how Red is the right color for this car---and looking at the picture of Dennis' car next to a Miura, I think he is right...even if the Drummer's lifetime dream was really the blue/red combination on Steve's car. 

 Polished wheels, yellow zinc plating, but then the big laugh: The carb is reversed  The choke is on the wrong side.! Peculiar ignition switch, wrong windshield washer jets,  solenoid not a Lucas 4ST...missing the fake-chrome edging, heater valves nowhere to be seen, missing the change cup on the console, odd weatherstripping around the rear, and a battery that isn't nearly as beautiful as Dennis'...

But oh, a working clock, one of the rarest things in a Mangusta! The talk about doing so much research and how the car is as the factory made it...Well, that's about as accurate as the final attribution;  The 1969 Detamaso wins the Chairman award and the J. Geils award at the Boston cup. And yeah, that's the spelling used here: https://thebostoncup.com/winners/ . And clearly the wrong year...

But though it would have been fun (in this world of the internet) to give advice and watch the car come together, no question--what a gorgeous car. And more than any other CCC episode I remember, you can see the pride in the guys who put it together. Candy-O, I need you so....! Lee

(...too much time on my hands, Taiwan is not 'locked down' like the rest of the world and the weather is great...) But tried to make sense of the "German transition" and whatever meaning 8ma1190 had. At least,  an ebay discussion with the guy selling the 'uncanny valley' Ferrero Mangusta steering wheel (and hopefully on this forum), mentioning that he'd worked with DeTomaso for many years...and that the Mangusta was basically made from the parts that could be found--makes the last ~50 cars so interesting. At least 2 key pieces---ignition on the column and the umbrella vs. floor mounted brake--seem to be all over the place in no linear order (1236, 1242, 1256, 1264 all with umbrella brakes, but 1224 a column-mounted key, "defroster" dash and no umbrella brake visible). And even weirder, 2 piece seats at least on 1242 and 1256.  

I'd like to think the CCC car is 8ma1222 based on the "361st" comment, but the only thing that's clear is how much variety there was at end of production...Lee