This Week, of Interest

The car was on the rally but photographer Ian Wilson has no information on owner or any details.

From Zagato, Seventy Years in the Fast Lane, Marchiano, 2000.

We’d like to introduce Ian Wilson, who moved from Northern Ireland to France two years ago. “My father introduced me to racing at the early age of 5 at the Dundrod TT,” so he’s got the sport in his blood. He spent the past 15 years involved with Goodwood, most often as an official photographer at the Revivals and Festivals. His first article is a stunning report on this year’s Circuits des Remparts.

Along the way Ian took some photos of an Alfa which he found difficult to identify–as did we. Searching around we found a drawing by Ercole Spada published in the Marchiano Zagato book (Nada, 2000). We don’t know much more though–readers welcome to tell us how this beautiful Zagato came into being.

And now for the Mangusta. We received a lot of comments, both pro and con about our critical look at DeTomaso’s enigma. We thank all of those who sent in their comments. Here are our comments and corrections:
1. There were rocker switches on the dashboards of late Mangustas, see the Euro version featured this week.
2. William Crapo (his given middle name) Durant was not Isabelle’s grandfather but the Durant and Haskell families intermarried in the 19th century. Jonathan Amory Haskell, Isabelle’s grandfather was a VP at Chevrolet. Armory Haskell, Isabelle’s father, was also a VP of GM. The Haskell family had both money and contacts not only in Detroit but in Washington. The reference to Durant in Note 1 has been corrected in the text of Part I.
3. The Federal Exemption: Yes, the standard existed and a lot of cars got through besides the Mangusta. The point is that the author has never seen a car that was permitted to ignore so many standards in the name of the 500-maximum production exemption. We are sure many of our readers remember when, in 1973, at the height of the oil embargo, thousands of gas-saving Fiat 128s were forced to sit on the docks at U.S. ports because their headlights were too low. No such fate befell DeTomaso.

Part II of the Mangusta story is below. We wish to thank readers Steven Liebenow, Mike Drew, Denis Caron and Daryl Adams for their help with the Mangusta articles.