quote:
Originally posted by Tomato Panscourer:
How come nobody mentions the Qvale ... It is a Detomaso right ...
De Tomaso ceased production of the Pantera Si in 1993 and invested its financial resources in manufacturing the Pantera's replacement called the Guarà. Guarà sales were substantially below expectations. The car you refer to as the Qvale was thus conceived circa 1994 or 1995 by Giordano Casarini for De Tomaso as the next project to invigorate De Tomaso sales. The coachwork, which features a unique multi-purpose roof-top called the "roto-top", was the design of Marcello Gandini, the same designer who had done the coachwork for the Pantera Si, the Lamborghini Diablo and the Lancia Stratos. The chassis was designed by Formula 1 chassis designer Scalabroni.
The EU turned-down De Tomaso's request for capital to fund the project in 1996 (3 years after Alessandro's stroke). Therefore to acquire the needed capital De Tomaso took on the Qvale family as financial partners.
The car was launched in 2000 as the De Tomaso Biguá selling at $78,000 USD; but a falling-out between the two business partners followed shortly thereafter. I have never seen a statistic stating how many of these cars were manufactured as De Tomaso Biguás, but I do not believe any of the cars thus badged were delivered to customers. By the time their manufacture had begun in earnest Qvale had bought-out De Tomaso's interest in the project. They continued to be manufactured in the same plant in Modena Italy, but that plant belonged solely to the Qvale family. The car was renamed the Qvale Mangusta. There are no De Tomaso emblems on the Qvale Mangusta, only Qvale emblems. Sales were lack luster, after the sale of ~280 units the project was sold to MG/Rover in June 2001. MG/Rover re-bodied the chassis as the MG SV.
If I may point out ... 280 units was far better than the sales of the Guarà of which only about 60 units were sold!
Qvale Mangustas have been displayed at the Concorso Italiano ... but not in our corral. They had their own display area separate from De Tomaso. Apparently this was the choice of who ever was displaying them. I would have welcomed them at our corral, but nobody ever asked.
