[DeTomaso] countach

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Fred Phillips in Calgary was kind enough to allow me to drive his brown 
Espada for about two and a half hours last summer.   What an absolutely 
delightful car!   It's got a lot of power but it's also quite heavy, so it's no 
rocketship in terms of acceleration.   But it's a fantastic long-distance, 
high-speed cruiser.   The interior is huge even though the car itself is quite 
low.   Full-sized adults can recline in the back seats in complete comfort 
while cruising along at 140 mph+ for hours.

Although there are dozens of modern cars (mostly German) that can achieve 
that today, it was a completely revolutionary concept in the late 1960s.   
Truly a standout car, and as for the love-it-or-hate-it looks, I happy to 
really love it.

I almost bought an Espada about 15-17 years ago, but eventually realized 
that for my purposes, and for the same money (roughly), a Shelby GT-350 clone 
was a much better bet.

The Espada and the Shelby Clone have appreciated since then, with the 
Espada increasing more, although they are still relatively cheap to buy today and 
deliver performance and enjoyment all out of proportion to their sales 
prices.   Espadas are enormously expensive to repair, however, and quite thirsty 
with fuel.

Mike