[DeTomaso] Fun in Modena....
Pantdino
pantdino at aol.com
Thu Oct 4 01:29:40 EDT 2012
OK, how do I get a copy of the build sheet for my car? :-)
Sounds like you are having a great trip.
I saw the Stanguellini museum in 2007. The caretaker was very interested in my buying one of the thick books on the marque, and I complied, sort of to thank him for his time.
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: MikeLDrew <MikeLDrew at aol.com>
To: detomaso <detomaso at realbig.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 3, 2012 3:59 pm
Subject: [DeTomaso] Fun in Modena....
Hi guys,
We had a terrific day in Modena, starting with absolutely picture-perfect
weather. We had a 10:00 a.m. appointment at RS Corse, which is only about
10 minutes from our hotel. We found it with no problem, and when we pulled
up, Rafaele, Mirko and Santiago were there waiting for us.
The cars of the De Tomaso museum are located in a showroom out front, while
a large warehouse area is where the parts are stored (with more out back,
sitting outside and rusting).
There is also a service area, including a clean-ish room for engine
building, and two lifts, both of which had customer Panteras on them.
I'm way too beat to go into details--suffice it to say that it was
incredible to see. They have moved the parts into real estate less than 1/3 of
the
previous warehouse size, and they did so in a hurry, with no sense of
organization. So as badly as things were organized before, it's now worse by
orders of magnitude. They have SO much stuff! So much stuff, in fact, that
they really don't know what they have, or where what they have is. It's
going to take years to catalog everything and get it sorted out.
I did see a few things I never knew existed, including a three-liter De
Tomaso V6! This was a Ford Capri block with a De Tomaso top end, with
aluminum heads, overhead cams etc. I suspect this was the engine from the
Pantera
270 or Pantera 290 (six-cylinder Pantera). They have two of them, one
still in a packing crate.
They have also been doing some organization of their paperwork. For years
it was said that they only had records on the Euro market cars, but they
have found all the shipping documentation for every car ever exported to the
USA. I was able to get copies of the relevant pages for my car, one of 30
that were shipped to Baltimore on September 5th, 1972. It lists all the
chassis numbers, engine numbers, exterior and interior colors, as well as the
shipping cost, and a breakdown of the costs of the goods that had been
temporarily imported (engines, alternators, A/C compressors, and pulleys).
What was even more fascinating was the handwritten documentation contained
in a series of notebooks that belonged to former factory employees, dating
back to the start of the company. Apparently, certain people working on the
floor felt compelled to take notes on the cars they were working on, and
later on they turned these notes over to De Tomaso. So by providing a VIN,
Santiago was able to flip to this book or that, and learn various things.
The late-model cars each have different engine tune levels, and the notes
gave a clear breakdown of the parts that went into building each one.
We broke for lunch, and drove to the Canalgrande hotel in the heart of
Modena for a wonderful, and thankfully not to heavy lunch. Afterwards we
returned, and basically stood around and BSed about cars for the rest of the
day.
Fred wasn't able to talk them out of the Mangusta prototype, but I shot
tons of photos of every car there for the registry, and Fred bought a bunch
of memorabelia, including dealer signs, models, shirts, etc. etc.
We finally broke away at 8:00 p.m.; Santiago led us to one of his favorite
restaurants, out in the fields outside of Modena. Luciano Pavarotti had a
large farm, and liked to eat. So he got one of the top chefs in the
country and built a restaurant for him in a converted stables on the farm, so
that
he could walk from his house to dinner each night. That restaurant is
simply out of this world! If there is a menu, we didn't see it. Santiago
just ordered one of every appetizer they had (!) which made for one hell of a
start. We each then had a main course, and finally two three-level dessert
carts tempted us and we gave in.
It was an epic dinner, lasting three hours, made the more enjoyable by
Santiago telling us the story of the rise and fall of the 'new' De Tomaso
recently. (BTW the whole story of BMW buying the brand is total BS, he
thinks).
We finally said our goodbyes and now it's after midnight. I need to
crash, because tomorrow we're going to the new Enzo Ferrari museum in the center
of Modena:
(http://www.museocasaenzoferrari.it/en/museo/)
followed by the Stanguellini SpA museum:
(www.stanguellini.it)
then a two-hour drive to San Marino for the Maranello Rosso museum tour:
(www.maranellorosso.com)
then driving back to Modena, where I bail out and join John DeBoer and
drive back to Milan for my flight the next morning.
Too tired and it's too late to upload photos--I'll get them posted by the
weekend.
Cheers!
Mike
P.S. Interesting trivia fact--the prototype Mangusta doesn't have a
Mangusta VIN; it just has a build tag with "001" on it....I didn't get to find
out if the first production car was 8MA500 or 8MA502, but 8MA504 was the
second car built according to the handwritten notes, so perhaps 502 was the
first
one? I'll find out soon....
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