Obituary: Alejandro De Tomaso

We have just received word from Italy Alejandro De Tomaso, founder and President of De Tomaso Modena S.p.A., passed away after a long period of illness. The funeral will be held in San Pietro Church, via San Pietro 7, Modena at 11 o'clock on Friday 23rd of May.

Alejandro De Tomaso was born in Buenos Aires on 10th July 1928. His father was a politician, who had been appointed Minister of Agriculture.

De Tomaso emigrated to Italy, where he drove OSCAs from 1956 to 1959, many times teaming with his wife, Isabelle Haskell of New Jersey.

Settling down in Modena, De Tomaso’s fertile mind flourished and soon he created a series of Formula Juniors, including the Isis and De Tomaso. By 1965, he had introduced the Vallelunga, a beautiful Ghia mid engined coupe, which used the Ford Cortina 1500cc engine.

The Vallelunga, however, gave way to even bigger plans. Working with the U.S. Ford Motor Company, De Tomaso started to work on the Ford V-8 powered Mangusta, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. If not a marketing success it most certainly caught the attention of the press as well as Ford’s upper level management, including Gene Bordinat. The result was the Pantera, which was designed by the American, Tom Tjaarda.

Remarkably, during that same period De Tomaso also constructed five Formula One cars, the DeTomaso 505, for Piers Courage. Having lured Gian-Paolo Dallara away from Lamborgini, De Tomaso’s F1 cars were extremely well-built. In a deal with Frank Williams, De Tomaso equipped the F1 cars with Cosworth engines. However, the death of Piers Courage at Zandvoort in 1970 stopped further involvement in Grand Prix racing.

Again using Ford V-8s, in 1970, De Tomaso built a four passenger luxury GT car, the Deauville, followed by the Longchamp in 1973.

In 1975, Alejandro succeeded in acquiring Maserati, then Innocenti, which built the new model of English Mini. Dealing with the Maserati production kept De Tomaso busy until Fiat acquired 49 percent of the firm in 1990. In the meantime there was a little deal with his friend Lee Iacocca, which resulted in the Chrysler-Maserati TC, built between 1987 and 1990.

In 1993, De Tomaso became seriously ill, with little chance of survival.

Today, the firm still produces two models of the Guarà: a coupè and a barchetta.

For more information about the funeral, contact:

Claudia Lodi
DeTomaso Modena S.p.A.
Via Virgilio n.9
41100 Modena
www.detomaso.it

Weekly Surprises
One of the nice things about being editor of VeloceToday is that every week is a surprise. As much as we'd like to establish a schedule of articles to be published for the next several months, we've always found that both difficult and, really, not much fun. Aside from Erik's F1 reports, which have thankfully been published every Wednesday after each event, we can't tell you what will be in next week's issue. Which makes is somewhat akin to a 50's era Italian pit stop, unrehearsed but exciting.

We can tell you what is coming up, at some future date, although we don't know exactly when. You'll just have to keep that subscription active to find out. So below, in no particular order, are just some of the stories we can guarantee you will receive via VeloceToday.

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A sneak of Blue
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Fiat Part IV
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Volpini
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Alfa Formula Boxer
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Surprises in between
Yep, in between all of the above will be even more articles, from Marcel Massini, Ed McDonough, and a host of others.