Mangusta Question - Out of Curiosity....

OK, I’ll take a W.A.G.....

Based on the COVID estimate of 10x cases per positive test...  and the fact that I have seen about 15 completed & running cars on these pages, I guess that there are 150 of these cars on the road, or in museums.

I know of one non-running car here in AZ.  Assuming that number is slightly off, I will estimate two non-running cars per state for a total of 100 garage projects.

That leaves 152 cars that have been totaled, or rusted out based on my precise estimation methodology of the approximately 5 destroyed or basketcase cars (like MA1000) that I have seen on this board, and multiplying this number by a 30.4x destruction factor.

Therefore:  150 + 100 + 152 = 402, which precisely matches the “agreed-upon” production total.  Of course this number  includes the final car made from spare parts for the King of Mexico (which is currently orange).

Rocky

Rocky, this is a good question, but I'll bet the number that have been really totaled is much smaller than this---my assumption not based on just how rare original parts are, but looking at Provamo (with 310 records) what is striking is how many fabulous cars there are. And though a lot of the pictures are in primer, many of those pictures are before values of the car went from $30k...owners can find a justification for spending money to get their car finished, or sell it to someone who will.

   Some clues on real totals exist, but not many---maybe 8ma988, whatever the one that flipped while road racing, apparently one with parts sold now out of Reno...the one in Europe we saw next to 10" campies and only the spine seeming to exist. Some cars just don't seem worth the effort, but neither are they getting thrown away. That so few parts exist, and the ones that do come up for sale are not getting purchased---tells me that there are a lot rather complete cars in the garage.

8ma1000 is a good example, because 15 years ago it would be considered a writeoff--but if it sold for anything close to its asking price, somebody was prepared to spend a lot of money to put it back together. We've seen quite a few 30 year projects roll out from under their rocks in the last 2 or 3 years...and some of those cars are going to come back looking better than they were first made. The economics are there for a lot of cars that were not that expensive when the owner started to fiddle on their car and ended up leaving it in pieces in the garage.

For example, we can really count 8ma800 'off' as a Mangusta (even with a fabulous rebody as something different), but even the 'odd goose'  was once apparently a great car---it could come back. 8ma1056 (the burn car) well, still looks like a Goose. A burn car is misery to repair, but somewhere there is someone with the skill to make just about everything from scratch.

So yes, I'm curious to find a single parts car ! But without seeing the death certificate, I'll bet well over 300 cars have a chance of being very nice, they are just waiting in quiet...Lee

Thanks, Lee...

I’ll take your numbers over mine, and I’ll have to do a little more educated study on ProvaMo!

Rocky