[DeTomaso] Mike's tale of De Tomaso book

[laurieferrari at aol.com]

I have two questions for Mike and a comment to All,

1. When will "YOU" write a BOOK?  You are long over due.  Obviously you have far more information than even a gifted bear; you've got the knowledge of historical facts, technical facts, and all those thousands of pictures you've taken and gathered through so many years, is it not yet obvious that YOU should be the author of your own book?  Heck... the letter you wrote here is nearly a book in itself.

2. Just curious, did there happen to be a picture of my little ole car in those batches of familial photos? : )
3. Cheers and Happiness to All.  It's going to be a really GOOD YEAR!  (better be!)  I even agree with what Judy said in her last two posts.

Laurie
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

[DeTomaso] On writing a book on De Tomaso....
    MikeLDrew at aol.com     MikeLDrew at aol.com       
    Fri Dec 18 12:59:12 MST 2015        
  
All,

Herewith, my thoughts on the trials and tribulations of producing a book on 
De Tomaso….

More than a year ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Daniele Pozzi, a 
college professor in Italy.   He was committed to writing a book on De 
Tomaso, focusing on the man and his life rather than on the cars.   He had my 
address (among numerous others) as a potential source of help and information. 
  I replied right away, but heard nothing back.

Six or eight months later, I was again contacted by Dr. Pozzi.   This time 
when I replied, I mentioned I had replied earlier and learned for some 
reason he had never received that.   He seemed quite excited when he learned of 
my position as Profiles editor, and my ability to support him with images 
etc.

We went back and forth, as he discussed his vision for the book.   He 
wanted to tell the whole story of De Tomaso (so he said) and end it with coverage 
of how De Tomaso has touched the lives of thousands of people around the 
world, and made it possible to forge lasting friendships through his cars.   
Thus he was especially keen to get photos and information from club meetings 
such as the POCA Fun Rally and the various European meetings.

It took me a few weeks, but I scoured my archives and, not wanting to leave 
anything out, I gave him over 46,000 (!) individual images I'd collected 
over the years.   I did help by filtering them somewhat, and I put crucial 
historical images whose value I thought was important in key folders, and 
organized the others in various contexts (Fun Rally photos, Euro meeting photos, 
individual car photos, people photos etc.).   I burned them to USB sticks 
and sent them to him.   During this time, he had been peppering me with 
questions, asking me to fact-check certain technical details (he appears to be 
more of a historian than a traditional 'car guy'), etc.

The Italian postal service leaves more than a bit to be desired, and it 
took almost two months (!) for the sticks to arrive.   But in the meantime, 
things had taken a bit of a turn.

It was never clear to me if Dr. Pozzi had the idea to write a book, and 
then found a publisher to produce it, or if the publisher wanted to produce a 
book, and found a guy to write it.   But clearly their relationship was not 
all that it could have been.   Pozzi had a very clear image in his mind of 
what he wanted his book to be--he wanted it to be positive and uplifting, and 
a primary goal was to show the happiness that De Tomaso's works have 
generated among many people like us.

The publisher had different ideas, and thought that was totally stupid.   
They wanted a straight historical biography without all the happy kumbyah 
stuff.   There was a meeting in the publisher's office, and one can imagine 
what an Italian business confrontation looks/sounds like.   Lots of yelling and 
arm-waving, and at the end of it, they took his manuscript and fired him 
from the project!

My images arrived just after this all happened, so none of them were 
incorporated into the book.   (The only things he got from me that were included 
in the book were photos of Dave Jacobsen's beautiful Pre-L Pantera, which was 
a Profiles centerfold car--I had sent those to him earlier, and numerous 
photos of that car are scattered throughout the book including on the cover, 
and Dave is rightly given photo credit).

Shortly afterwards, you may recall that Ed Mendez was contacted by a US 
publisher looking for some help in producing an English-language version of the 
book, and he shared that info with us.   Several of you expressed interest, 
but I contacted the publisher directly and asked him WTF since I was 
already deeply involved in the project?

The publisher immediately phoned me in surprise, as he had no knowledge.

It turns out that there was a big book fair in New York City, and the 
Italian company had showed off an Italian-language mockup of the book, and was 
seeking a US partner to produce an English-language version alongside of it.   
Both editions would be printed at the same time in Italy.   They assured 
everyone that this was a turn-key, ready-for-print book that only needed 
translation, so Dalton Books bought it.

This outfit is known for producing really, really, REALLY high-quality car 
books--limited-edition leather bound box sets on the Rolls-Royce Silver 
Ghost that sell for $1750, that kind of thing.

They hired an Italian-to-English translator to translate the text (one who 
supposedly had a good grasp of both languages but didn't really know 
automobiles specifically), and when that was done, they sent the text to me for 
fact-checking and editing.   

The translation left a lot to be desired; there was more than a little 
flat-tire English, where it would be obvious that the writer didn't speak the 
language fluently, and re-writing the factually correct text into proper, 
flowing English was a big job.   However, there were a LOT of factual and 
technical errors, which took quite some time to sort through and correct. That 
process alone probably took me 20-30 hours, as when I read something that I 
believed to be wrong, I had to be able to prove it to them (and myself) so had 
to do a lot of independent research.   The Italian publisher got quite 
annoyed, because I pointed out loads of technical and historical inaccuracies, 
which needed to be corrected in the English language version, and then they 
felt compelled to change those same errors in the Italian version.

(One example--Pozzi got it backwards and thought the Vallelunga prototypes 
were made in fiberglass and the production cars were in aluminum, but we all 
know that is demonstrably untrue; there are only three known aluminum 
Fissore prototypes and all the Ghia cars, including the one De Tomaso owns today, 
are fiberglass).

There were some 'facts' that I believed were incorrect, but I couldn't 
prove it.   I would then ask Pozzi to seek confirmation from his sources, as I 
thought perhaps he had got a story turned around or something?   But by this 
time, he had lost all interest in cooperating with the project that had been 
taken away from him, and although he was very polite and friendly to me, he 
basically said he was too busy to devote any more time to it, and told the 
Italian publishers to take a flying leap….

More disturbing to me, however, is that the book ended very prematurely in 
the story.   Most people know that De Tomaso suffered a terrible stroke in 
1993.   It left him permanently paralyzed and unable to speak, but his brain 
was completely unaffected.   He then entered into an absolutely heroic 
period of intensive rehab, determined to conquer his condition.   He gradually 
improved somewhat, and was able to communicate in a very guttural manner, 
which only a handful of people were able to understand.

Even at that, he successfully negotiated the sale of his 51% ownership of 
Maserati to Ferrari for many millions of Euros, then launched the De Tomaso 
Bigua, which then evolved into a joint venture with Qvale, and then blew up 
spectacularly.   Even as that was crashing to earth, he was involved with a 
grand scheme with backing of the Italian government to import sturdy, simple 
Russian 4x4 SUVs in KDC (knocked-down kit) form; the trucks would arrive as 
1:1 scale kits, and would be assembled in a new purpose-built factory in the 
economically depressed south of Italy, and would be powered by a 
Belgian-made diesel engine sourced from a partnership with Chrysler.   This was a VERY 
complicated deal with a lot of moving parts.

The profits from this enterprise would then be funneled to De Tomaso 
Automobili, who would use them to produce a new Vallelunga (Porsche 
Boxter-competitor, likely powered by a Saab turbo motor), and ultimately a new Pantera.

Unfortunately, that whole deal blew up too, after De Tomaso had accepted a 
huge pile of Euros from the Italian government.   When the plug got pulled 
and he was unable to pay it back, De Tomaso went into liquidation, then the 
brand was sold, and more Italian economic soap opera took place for a few 
years afterwards, with the family not involved.

Anyway, even though both the Qvale and SUV deals fell apart, they were VERY 
ambitious projects, and were not merely vaporware--real cars were produced 
in both cases.   This was a very significant and tragic end to the story of 
De Tomaso, both the man and the corporation--and it was completely absent 
from the book.

When I read it and found this out, I sent a strong WTFO note to both 
English and Italian publishers and the author?   Pozzi then confessed that when 
the project first started. Isabelle and Santiago promised full cooperation 
(without which the book would have been more or less impossible) under the 
condition that Pozzi agree to conceal the truth about anything that happened 
after 1993!

What kind of historian or journalist would agree to such terms?   In any 
case, that's the deal Pozzi made, so all talk of those later failed ventures 
was eliminated.   I find it especially pathetic, because if you are really 
interested in the MAN, it is something the family should be proud of.   But 
instead, they are ashamed of the fact that the ventures failed and want to 
whitewash history and pretend they never happened.

So the text in the book more or less indicates that he had a stroke in 
1993, then sat around in a poopy diaper, drooling on himself until he died in 
2003.   To me, THAT is pathetic, but that's how they wanted the story told.   
Charlie and I know for a fact that's not true, because when we met him in 
2001, he was absolutely FEROCIOUS, animated, loud, arrogant, and full of piss 
and vinegar.   Although I happened to feel that he was a complete jerk (as 
did seemingly everybody else who knew him), he was far from the vegetable the 
book makes him out to be.

So, with all that said, when the book arrived the other day, I was 
absolutely blown away at the high quality of the resultant effort.   The book is 
considerably larger than I was expecting (it's 13x11 inches) and the 
photography is simply stunning.   There are beautiful photo spreads of most of the 
cars in the De Tomaso family collection (although since they don't have a GT5 
or GT5-S, those are absent, and apparently their Pantera Si broke down and 
they didn't want to bother towing it to be photographed so it's absent too).   
There are historical photos directly from De Tomaso's family archives that 
have never been seen before, and will never be seen anywhere else.

And there's the story.   Given their well-established propensity for 
shading the truth, one has to wonder exactly how accurate it all is, but I'm 
willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about their telling of their early 
history at least.   It's certainly educational (I learned a lot!) and 
fascinating.

So at the end of the day, even with all the caveats and asterisks, this is 
far and away the best De Tomaso book ever made, and if you have even a 
passing interest in the marque, you owe it to yourself to get a copy!

Mike

P.S.   It's worth noting that purely by coincidence, another Italian-market 
book on De Tomaso has just been printed; it was released on September 30th. 
  It's in Italian only and seems to be a much more modest effort (208 
pages, paperback?).   I've only seen pictures of the book, but the few pages I 
saw revealed images I'd never seen elsewhere, so that might be worth digging 
up as well if you're really a nut about this stuff….

Here it is on the publisher's website:

http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-tomaso.ht
m

Not available on Amazon USA, but it is available on Amazon Italia:

http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947

and from numerous other European retailers as well….
-------------- next part --------------
   All,
   Herewith, my thoughts on the trials and tribulations of producing a
   book on De Tomasoa|.
   More than a year ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Daniele
   Pozzi, a college professor in Italy.  He was committed to writing a
   book on De Tomaso, focusing on the man and his life rather than on the
   cars.  He had my address (among numerous others) as a potential source
   of help and information.  I replied right away, but heard nothing back.
   Six or eight months later, I was again contacted by Dr. Pozzi.  This
   time when I replied, I mentioned I had replied earlier and learned for
   some reason he had never received that.  He seemed quite excited when
   he learned of my position as Profiles editor, and my ability to support
   him with images etc.
   We went back and forth, as he discussed his vision for the book.  He
   wanted to tell the whole story of De Tomaso (so he said) and end it
   with coverage of how De Tomaso has touched the lives of thousands of
   people around the world, and made it possible to forge lasting
   friendships through his cars.  Thus he was especially keen to get
   photos and information from club meetings such as the POCA Fun Rally
   and the various European meetings.
   It took me a few weeks, but I scoured my archives and, not wanting to
   leave anything out, I gave him over 46,000 (!) individual images I'd
   collected over the years.  I did help by filtering them somewhat, and I
   put crucial historical images whose value I thought was important in
   key folders, and organized the others in various contexts (Fun Rally
   photos, Euro meeting photos, individual car photos, people photos
   etc.).  I burned them to USB sticks and sent them to him.  During this
   time, he had been peppering me with questions, asking me to fact-check
   certain technical details (he appears to be more of a historian than a
   traditional 'car guy'), etc.
   The Italian postal service leaves more than a bit to be desired, and it
   took almost two months (!) for the sticks to arrive.  But in the
   meantime, things had taken a bit of a turn.
   It was never clear to me if Dr. Pozzi had the idea to write a book, and
   then found a publisher to produce it, or if the publisher wanted to
   produce a book, and found a guy to write it.  But clearly their
   relationship was not all that it could have been.  Pozzi had a very
   clear image in his mind of what he wanted his book to be--he wanted it
   to be positive and uplifting, and a primary goal was to show the
   happiness that De Tomaso's works have generated among many people like
   us.
   The publisher had different ideas, and thought that was totally
   stupid.  They wanted a straight historical biography without all the
   happy kumbyah stuff.  There was a meeting in the publisher's office,
   and one can imagine what an Italian business confrontation looks/sounds
   like.  Lots of yelling and arm-waving, and at the end of it, they took
   his manuscript and fired him from the project!
   My images arrived just after this all happened, so none of them were
   incorporated into the book.  (The only things he got from me that were
   included in the book were photos of Dave Jacobsen's beautiful Pre-L
   Pantera, which was a Profiles centerfold car--I had sent those to him
   earlier, and numerous photos of that car are scattered throughout the
   book including on the cover, and Dave is rightly given photo credit).
   Shortly afterwards, you may recall that Ed Mendez was contacted by a US
   publisher looking for some help in producing an English-language
   version of the book, and he shared that info with us.  Several of you
   expressed interest, but I contacted the publisher directly and asked
   him WTF since I was already deeply involved in the project?
   The publisher immediately phoned me in surprise, as he had no
   knowledge.
   It turns out that there was a big book fair in New York City, and the
   Italian company had showed off an Italian-language mockup of the book,
   and was seeking a US partner to produce an English-language version
   alongside of it.  Both editions would be printed at the same time in
   Italy.  They assured everyone that this was a turn-key, ready-for-print
   book that only needed translation, so Dalton Books bought it.
   This outfit is known for producing really, really, REALLY high-quality
   car books--limited-edition leather bound box sets on the Rolls-Royce
   Silver Ghost that sell for $1750, that kind of thing.
   They hired an Italian-to-English translator to translate the text (one
   who supposedly had a good grasp of both languages but didn't really
   know automobiles specifically), and when that was done, they sent the
   text to me for fact-checking and editing.
   The translation left a lot to be desired; there was more than a little
   flat-tire English, where it would be obvious that the writer didn't
   speak the language fluently, and re-writing the factually correct text
   into proper, flowing English was a big job.  However, there were a LOT
   of factual and technical errors, which took quite some time to sort
   through and correct. That process alone probably took me 20-30 hours,
   as when I read something that I believed to be wrong, I had to be able
   to prove it to them (and myself) so had to do a lot of independent
   research.  The Italian publisher got quite annoyed, because I pointed
   out loads of technical and historical inaccuracies, which needed to be
   corrected in the English language version, and then they felt compelled
   to change those same errors in the Italian version.
   (One example--Pozzi got it backwards and thought the Vallelunga
   prototypes were made in fiberglass and the production cars were in
   aluminum, but we all know that is demonstrably untrue; there are only
   three known aluminum Fissore prototypes and all the Ghia cars,
   including the one De Tomaso owns today, are fiberglass).
   There were some 'facts' that I believed were incorrect, but I couldn't
   prove it.  I would then ask Pozzi to seek confirmation from his
   sources, as I thought perhaps he had got a story turned around or
   something?  But by this time, he had lost all interest in cooperating
   with the project that had been taken away from him, and although he was
   very polite and friendly to me, he basically said he was too busy to
   devote any more time to it, and told the Italian publishers to take a
   flying leapa|.
   More disturbing to me, however, is that the book ended very prematurely
   in the story.  Most people know that De Tomaso suffered a terrible
   stroke in 1993.  It left him permanently paralyzed and unable to speak,
   but his brain was completely unaffected.  He then entered into an
   absolutely heroic period of intensive rehab, determined to conquer his
   condition.  He gradually improved somewhat, and was able to communicate
   in a very guttural manner, which only a handful of people were able to
   understand.
   Even at that, he successfully negotiated the sale of his 51% ownership
   of Maserati to Ferrari for many millions of Euros, then launched the De
   Tomaso Bigua, which then evolved into a joint venture with Qvale, and
   then blew up spectacularly.  Even as that was crashing to earth, he was
   involved with a grand scheme with backing of the Italian government to
   import sturdy, simple Russian 4x4 SUVs in KDC (knocked-down kit) form;
   the trucks would arrive as 1:1 scale kits, and would be assembled in a
   new purpose-built factory in the economically depressed south of Italy,
   and would be powered by a Belgian-made diesel engine sourced from a
   partnership with Chrysler.  This was a VERY complicated deal with a lot
   of moving parts.
   The profits from this enterprise would then be funneled to De Tomaso
   Automobili, who would use them to produce a new Vallelunga (Porsche
   Boxter-competitor, likely powered by a Saab turbo motor), and
   ultimately a new Pantera.
   Unfortunately, that whole deal blew up too, after De Tomaso had
   accepted a huge pile of Euros from the Italian government.  When the
   plug got pulled and he was unable to pay it back, De Tomaso went into
   liquidation, then the brand was sold, and more Italian economic soap
   opera took place for a few years afterwards, with the family not
   involved.
   Anyway, even though both the Qvale and SUV deals fell apart, they were
   VERY ambitious projects, and were not merely vaporware--real cars were
   produced in both cases.  This was a very significant and tragic end to
   the story of De Tomaso, both the man and the corporation--and it was
   completely absent from the book.
   When I read it and found this out, I sent a strong WTFO note to both
   English and Italian publishers and the author?  Pozzi then confessed
   that when the project first started. Isabelle and Santiago promised
   full cooperation (without which the book would have been more or less
   impossible) under the condition that Pozzi agree to conceal the truth
   about anything that happened after 1993!
   What kind of historian or journalist would agree to such terms?  In any
   case, that's the deal Pozzi made, so all talk of those later failed
   ventures was eliminated.  I find it especially pathetic, because if you
   are really interested in the MAN, it is something the family should be
   proud of.  But instead, they are ashamed of the fact that the ventures
   failed and want to whitewash history and pretend they never happened.
   So the text in the book more or less indicates that he had a stroke in
   1993, then sat around in a poopy diaper, drooling on himself until he
   died in 2003.  To me, THAT is pathetic, but that's how they wanted the
   story told.  Charlie and I know for a fact that's not true, because
   when we met him in 2001, he was absolutely FEROCIOUS, animated, loud,
   arrogant, and full of piss and vinegar.  Although I happened to feel
   that he was a complete jerk (as did seemingly everybody else who knew
   him), he was far from the vegetable the book makes him out to be.
   So, with all that said, when the book arrived the other day, I was
   absolutely blown away at the high quality of the resultant effort.  The
   book is considerably larger than I was expecting (it's 13x11 inches)
   and the photography is simply stunning.  There are beautiful photo
   spreads of most of the cars in the De Tomaso family collection
   (although since they don't have a GT5 or GT5-S, those are absent, and
   apparently their Pantera Si broke down and they didn't want to bother
   towing it to be photographed so it's absent too).  There are historical
   photos directly from De Tomaso's family archives that have never been
   seen before, and will never be seen anywhere else.
   And there's the story.  Given their well-established propensity for
   shading the truth, one has to wonder exactly how accurate it all is,
   but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about their
   telling of their early history at least.  It's certainly educational (I
   learned a lot!) and fascinating.
   So at the end of the day, even with all the caveats and asterisks, this
   is far and away the best De Tomaso book ever made, and if you have even
   a passing interest in the marque, you owe it to yourself to get a copy!
   Mike
   P.S.  It's worth noting that purely by coincidence, another
   Italian-market book on De Tomaso has just been printed; it was released
   on September 30th.  It's in Italian only and seems to be a much more
   modest effort (208 pages, paperback?).  I've only seen pictures of the
   book, but the few pages I saw revealed images I'd never seen elsewhere,
   so that might be worth digging up as well if you're really a nut about
   this stuffa|.
   Here it is on the publisher's website:
   http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-toma
   so.htm
   Not available on Amazon USA, but it is available on Amazon Italia:
   http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947
   and from numerous other European retailers as wella|.

-------------- next part --------------
              I have two questions for Mike and a comment to All,

1. When will "YOU" write a BOOK?  You are long over due.  Obviously you have far
more information than even a gifted bear; you've got the knowledge of historical
  facts, technical facts, and all those thousands of pictures you've taken and
  gathered through so many years, is it not yet obvious that YOU should be the
author of your own book?  Heck... the letter you wrote here is nearly a book in
                                    itself.

2. Just curious, did there happen to be a picture of my little ole car in those
                        batches of familial photos? : )

   3. Cheers and Happiness to All.  It's going to be a really GOOD YEAR!
   (better be!)  I even agree with what Judy said in her last two posts.

   Laurie

   _______________________________________________________________________
   ______________________

                 [DeTomaso] On writing a book on De Tomaso....

   MikeLDrew at aol.com [1]MikeLDrew at aol.com
   Fri Dec 18 12:59:12 MST 2015
     __________________________________________________________________

All,

Herewith, my thoughts on the trials and tribulations of producing a book on
De Tomasoa|.

More than a year ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Daniele Pozzi, a
college professor in Italy.   He was committed to writing a book on De
Tomaso, focusing on the man and his life rather than on the cars.   He had my
address (among numerous others) as a potential source of help and information.
  I replied right away, but heard nothing back.

Six or eight months later, I was again contacted by Dr. Pozzi.   This time
when I replied, I mentioned I had replied earlier and learned for some
reason he had never received that.   He seemed quite excited when he learned of
my position as Profiles editor, and my ability to support him with images
etc.

We went back and forth, as he discussed his vision for the book.   He
wanted to tell the whole story of De Tomaso (so he said) and end it with coverag
e
of how De Tomaso has touched the lives of thousands of people around the
world, and made it possible to forge lasting friendships through his cars.
Thus he was especially keen to get photos and information from club meetings
such as the POCA Fun Rally and the various European meetings.

It took me a few weeks, but I scoured my archives and, not wanting to leave
anything out, I gave him over 46,000 (!) individual images I'd collected
over the years.   I did help by filtering them somewhat, and I put crucial
historical images whose value I thought was important in key folders, and
organized the others in various contexts (Fun Rally photos, Euro meeting photos,

individual car photos, people photos etc.).   I burned them to USB sticks
and sent them to him.   During this time, he had been peppering me with
questions, asking me to fact-check certain technical details (he appears to be
more of a historian than a traditional 'car guy'), etc.

The Italian postal service leaves more than a bit to be desired, and it
took almost two months (!) for the sticks to arrive.   But in the meantime,
things had taken a bit of a turn.

It was never clear to me if Dr. Pozzi had the idea to write a book, and
then found a publisher to produce it, or if the publisher wanted to produce a
book, and found a guy to write it.   But clearly their relationship was not
all that it could have been.   Pozzi had a very clear image in his mind of
what he wanted his book to be--he wanted it to be positive and uplifting, and
a primary goal was to show the happiness that De Tomaso's works have
generated among many people like us.

The publisher had different ideas, and thought that was totally stupid.
They wanted a straight historical biography without all the happy kumbyah
stuff.   There was a meeting in the publisher's office, and one can imagine
what an Italian business confrontation looks/sounds like.   Lots of yelling and
arm-waving, and at the end of it, they took his manuscript and fired him
from the project!

My images arrived just after this all happened, so none of them were
incorporated into the book.   (The only things he got from me that were included

in the book were photos of Dave Jacobsen's beautiful Pre-L Pantera, which was
a Profiles centerfold car--I had sent those to him earlier, and numerous
photos of that car are scattered throughout the book including on the cover,
and Dave is rightly given photo credit).

Shortly afterwards, you may recall that Ed Mendez was contacted by a US
publisher looking for some help in producing an English-language version of the
book, and he shared that info with us.   Several of you expressed interest,
but I contacted the publisher directly and asked him WTF since I was
already deeply involved in the project?

The publisher immediately phoned me in surprise, as he had no knowledge.

It turns out that there was a big book fair in New York City, and the
Italian company had showed off an Italian-language mockup of the book, and was
seeking a US partner to produce an English-language version alongside of it.
Both editions would be printed at the same time in Italy.   They assured
everyone that this was a turn-key, ready-for-print book that only needed
translation, so Dalton Books bought it.

This outfit is known for producing really, really, REALLY high-quality car
books--limited-edition leather bound box sets on the Rolls-Royce Silver
Ghost that sell for $1750, that kind of thing.

They hired an Italian-to-English translator to translate the text (one who
supposedly had a good grasp of both languages but didn't really know
automobiles specifically), and when that was done, they sent the text to me for
fact-checking and editing.

The translation left a lot to be desired; there was more than a little
flat-tire English, where it would be obvious that the writer didn't speak the
language fluently, and re-writing the factually correct text into proper,
flowing English was a big job.   However, there were a LOT of factual and
technical errors, which took quite some time to sort through and correct. That
process alone probably took me 20-30 hours, as when I read something that I
believed to be wrong, I had to be able to prove it to them (and myself) so had
to do a lot of independent research.   The Italian publisher got quite
annoyed, because I pointed out loads of technical and historical inaccuracies,
which needed to be corrected in the English language version, and then they
felt compelled to change those same errors in the Italian version.

(One example--Pozzi got it backwards and thought the Vallelunga prototypes
were made in fiberglass and the production cars were in aluminum, but we all
know that is demonstrably untrue; there are only three known aluminum
Fissore prototypes and all the Ghia cars, including the one De Tomaso owns today
,
are fiberglass).

There were some 'facts' that I believed were incorrect, but I couldn't
prove it.   I would then ask Pozzi to seek confirmation from his sources, as I
thought perhaps he had got a story turned around or something?   But by this
time, he had lost all interest in cooperating with the project that had been
taken away from him, and although he was very polite and friendly to me, he
basically said he was too busy to devote any more time to it, and told the
Italian publishers to take a flying leapa|.

More disturbing to me, however, is that the book ended very prematurely in
the story.   Most people know that De Tomaso suffered a terrible stroke in
1993.   It left him permanently paralyzed and unable to speak, but his brain
was completely unaffected.   He then entered into an absolutely heroic
period of intensive rehab, determined to conquer his condition.   He gradually
improved somewhat, and was able to communicate in a very guttural manner,
which only a handful of people were able to understand.

Even at that, he successfully negotiated the sale of his 51% ownership of
Maserati to Ferrari for many millions of Euros, then launched the De Tomaso
Bigua, which then evolved into a joint venture with Qvale, and then blew up
spectacularly.   Even as that was crashing to earth, he was involved with a
grand scheme with backing of the Italian government to import sturdy, simple
Russian 4x4 SUVs in KDC (knocked-down kit) form; the trucks would arrive as
1:1 scale kits, and would be assembled in a new purpose-built factory in the
economically depressed south of Italy, and would be powered by a
Belgian-made diesel engine sourced from a partnership with Chrysler.   This was
a VERY
complicated deal with a lot of moving parts.

The profits from this enterprise would then be funneled to De Tomaso
Automobili, who would use them to produce a new Vallelunga (Porsche
Boxter-competitor, likely powered by a Saab turbo motor), and ultimately a new P
antera.

Unfortunately, that whole deal blew up too, after De Tomaso had accepted a
huge pile of Euros from the Italian government.   When the plug got pulled
and he was unable to pay it back, De Tomaso went into liquidation, then the
brand was sold, and more Italian economic soap opera took place for a few
years afterwards, with the family not involved.

Anyway, even though both the Qvale and SUV deals fell apart, they were VERY
ambitious projects, and were not merely vaporware--real cars were produced
in both cases.   This was a very significant and tragic end to the story of
De Tomaso, both the man and the corporation--and it was completely absent
from the book.

When I read it and found this out, I sent a strong WTFO note to both
English and Italian publishers and the author?   Pozzi then confessed that when
the project first started. Isabelle and Santiago promised full cooperation
(without which the book would have been more or less impossible) under the
condition that Pozzi agree to conceal the truth about anything that happened
after 1993!

What kind of historian or journalist would agree to such terms?   In any
case, that's the deal Pozzi made, so all talk of those later failed ventures
was eliminated.   I find it especially pathetic, because if you are really
interested in the MAN, it is something the family should be proud of.   But
instead, they are ashamed of the fact that the ventures failed and want to
whitewash history and pretend they never happened.

So the text in the book more or less indicates that he had a stroke in
1993, then sat around in a poopy diaper, drooling on himself until he died in
2003.   To me, THAT is pathetic, but that's how they wanted the story told.
Charlie and I know for a fact that's not true, because when we met him in
2001, he was absolutely FEROCIOUS, animated, loud, arrogant, and full of piss
and vinegar.   Although I happened to feel that he was a complete jerk (as
did seemingly everybody else who knew him), he was far from the vegetable the
book makes him out to be.

So, with all that said, when the book arrived the other day, I was
absolutely blown away at the high quality of the resultant effort.   The book is

considerably larger than I was expecting (it's 13x11 inches) and the
photography is simply stunning.   There are beautiful photo spreads of most of t
he
cars in the De Tomaso family collection (although since they don't have a GT5
or GT5-S, those are absent, and apparently their Pantera Si broke down and
they didn't want to bother towing it to be photographed so it's absent too).
There are historical photos directly from De Tomaso's family archives that
have never been seen before, and will never be seen anywhere else.

And there's the story.   Given their well-established propensity for
shading the truth, one has to wonder exactly how accurate it all is, but I'm
willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about their telling of their early

history at least.   It's certainly educational (I learned a lot!) and
fascinating.

So at the end of the day, even with all the caveats and asterisks, this is
far and away the best De Tomaso book ever made, and if you have even a
passing interest in the marque, you owe it to yourself to get a copy!

Mike

P.S.   It's worth noting that purely by coincidence, another Italian-market
book on De Tomaso has just been printed; it was released on September 30th.
  It's in Italian only and seems to be a much more modest effort (208
pages, paperback?).   I've only seen pictures of the book, but the few pages I
saw revealed images I'd never seen elsewhere, so that might be worth digging
up as well if you're really a nut about this stuffa|.

Here it is on the publisher's website:

[2]http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-tomaso.ht
m

Not available on Amazon USA, but it is available on Amazon Italia:

[3]http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947

and from numerous other European retailers as wella|.
-------------- next part --------------
   All,
   Herewith, my thoughts on the trials and tribulations of producing a
   book on De Tomasoa|.
   More than a year ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Daniele
   Pozzi, a college professor in Italy.  He was committed to writing a
   book on De Tomaso, focusing on the man and his life rather than on the
   cars.  He had my address (among numerous others) as a potential source
   of help and information.  I replied right away, but heard nothing back.
   Six or eight months later, I was again contacted by Dr. Pozzi.  This
   time when I replied, I mentioned I had replied earlier and learned for
   some reason he had never received that.  He seemed quite excited when
   he learned of my position as Profiles editor, and my ability to support
   him with images etc.
   We went back and forth, as he discussed his vision for the book.  He
   wanted to tell the whole story of De Tomaso (so he said) and end it
   with coverage of how De Tomaso has touched the lives of thousands of
   people around the world, and made it possible to forge lasting
   friendships through his cars.  Thus he was especially keen to get
   photos and information from club meetings such as the POCA Fun Rally
   and the various European meetings.
   It took me a few weeks, but I scoured my archives and, not wanting to
   leave anything out, I gave him over 46,000 (!) individual images I'd
   collected over the years.  I did help by filtering them somewhat, and I
   put crucial historical images whose value I thought was important in
   key folders, and organized the others in various contexts (Fun Rally
   photos, Euro meeting photos, individual car photos, people photos
   etc.).  I burned them to USB sticks and sent them to him.  During this
   time, he had been peppering me with questions, asking me to fact-check
   certain technical details (he appears to be more of a historian than a
   traditional 'car guy'), etc.
   The Italian postal service leaves more than a bit to be desired, and it
   took almost two months (!) for the sticks to arrive.  But in the
   meantime, things had taken a bit of a turn.
   It was never clear to me if Dr. Pozzi had the idea to write a book, and
   then found a publisher to produce it, or if the publisher wanted to
   produce a book, and found a guy to write it.  But clearly their
   relationship was not all that it could have been.  Pozzi had a very
   clear image in his mind of what he wanted his book to be--he wanted it
   to be positive and uplifting, and a primary goal was to show the
   happiness that De Tomaso's works have generated among many people like
   us.
   The publisher had different ideas, and thought that was totally
   stupid.  They wanted a straight historical biography without all the
   happy kumbyah stuff.  There was a meeting in the publisher's office,
   and one can imagine what an Italian business confrontation looks/sounds
   like.  Lots of yelling and arm-waving, and at the end of it, they took
   his manuscript and fired him from the project!
   My images arrived just after this all happened, so none of them were
   incorporated into the book.  (The only things he got from me that were
   included in the book were photos of Dave Jacobsen's beautiful Pre-L
   Pantera, which was a Profiles centerfold car--I had sent those to him
   earlier, and numerous photos of that car are scattered throughout the
   book including on the cover, and Dave is rightly given photo credit).
   Shortly afterwards, you may recall that Ed Mendez was contacted by a US
   publisher looking for some help in producing an English-language
   version of the book, and he shared that info with us.  Several of you
   expressed interest, but I contacted the publisher directly and asked
   him WTF since I was already deeply involved in the project?
   The publisher immediately phoned me in surprise, as he had no
   knowledge.
   It turns out that there was a big book fair in New York City, and the
   Italian company had showed off an Italian-language mockup of the book,
   and was seeking a US partner to produce an English-language version
   alongside of it.  Both editions would be printed at the same time in
   Italy.  They assured everyone that this was a turn-key, ready-for-print
   book that only needed translation, so Dalton Books bought it.
   This outfit is known for producing really, really, REALLY high-quality
   car books--limited-edition leather bound box sets on the Rolls-Royce
   Silver Ghost that sell for $1750, that kind of thing.
   They hired an Italian-to-English translator to translate the text (one
   who supposedly had a good grasp of both languages but didn't really
   know automobiles specifically), and when that was done, they sent the
   text to me for fact-checking and editing.
   The translation left a lot to be desired; there was more than a little
   flat-tire English, where it would be obvious that the writer didn't
   speak the language fluently, and re-writing the factually correct text
   into proper, flowing English was a big job.  However, there were a LOT
   of factual and technical errors, which took quite some time to sort
   through and correct. That process alone probably took me 20-30 hours,
   as when I read something that I believed to be wrong, I had to be able
   to prove it to them (and myself) so had to do a lot of independent
   research.  The Italian publisher got quite annoyed, because I pointed
   out loads of technical and historical inaccuracies, which needed to be
   corrected in the English language version, and then they felt compelled
   to change those same errors in the Italian version.
   (One example--Pozzi got it backwards and thought the Vallelunga
   prototypes were made in fiberglass and the production cars were in
   aluminum, but we all know that is demonstrably untrue; there are only
   three known aluminum Fissore prototypes and all the Ghia cars,
   including the one De Tomaso owns today, are fiberglass).
   There were some 'facts' that I believed were incorrect, but I couldn't
   prove it.  I would then ask Pozzi to seek confirmation from his
   sources, as I thought perhaps he had got a story turned around or
   something?  But by this time, he had lost all interest in cooperating
   with the project that had been taken away from him, and although he was
   very polite and friendly to me, he basically said he was too busy to
   devote any more time to it, and told the Italian publishers to take a
   flying leapa|.
   More disturbing to me, however, is that the book ended very prematurely
   in the story.  Most people know that De Tomaso suffered a terrible
   stroke in 1993.  It left him permanently paralyzed and unable to speak,
   but his brain was completely unaffected.  He then entered into an
   absolutely heroic period of intensive rehab, determined to conquer his
   condition.  He gradually improved somewhat, and was able to communicate
   in a very guttural manner, which only a handful of people were able to
   understand.
   Even at that, he successfully negotiated the sale of his 51% ownership
   of Maserati to Ferrari for many millions of Euros, then launched the De
   Tomaso Bigua, which then evolved into a joint venture with Qvale, and
   then blew up spectacularly.  Even as that was crashing to earth, he was
   involved with a grand scheme with backing of the Italian government to
   import sturdy, simple Russian 4x4 SUVs in KDC (knocked-down kit) form;
   the trucks would arrive as 1:1 scale kits, and would be assembled in a
   new purpose-built factory in the economically depressed south of Italy,
   and would be powered by a Belgian-made diesel engine sourced from a
   partnership with Chrysler.  This was a VERY complicated deal with a lot
   of moving parts.
   The profits from this enterprise would then be funneled to De Tomaso
   Automobili, who would use them to produce a new Vallelunga (Porsche
   Boxter-competitor, likely powered by a Saab turbo motor), and
   ultimately a new Pantera.
   Unfortunately, that whole deal blew up too, after De Tomaso had
   accepted a huge pile of Euros from the Italian government.  When the
   plug got pulled and he was unable to pay it back, De Tomaso went into
   liquidation, then the brand was sold, and more Italian economic soap
   opera took place for a few years afterwards, with the family not
   involved.
   Anyway, even though both the Qvale and SUV deals fell apart, they were
   VERY ambitious projects, and were not merely vaporware--real cars were
   produced in both cases.  This was a very significant and tragic end to
   the story of De Tomaso, both the man and the corporation--and it was
   completely absent from the book.
   When I read it and found this out, I sent a strong WTFO note to both
   English and Italian publishers and the author?  Pozzi then confessed
   that when the project first started. Isabelle and Santiago promised
   full cooperation (without which the book would have been more or less
   impossible) under the condition that Pozzi agree to conceal the truth
   about anything that happened after 1993!
   What kind of historian or journalist would agree to such terms?  In any
   case, that's the deal Pozzi made, so all talk of those later failed
   ventures was eliminated.  I find it especially pathetic, because if you
   are really interested in the MAN, it is something the family should be
   proud of.  But instead, they are ashamed of the fact that the ventures
   failed and want to whitewash history and pretend they never happened.
   So the text in the book more or less indicates that he had a stroke in
   1993, then sat around in a poopy diaper, drooling on himself until he
   died in 2003.  To me, THAT is pathetic, but that's how they wanted the
   story told.  Charlie and I know for a fact that's not true, because
   when we met him in 2001, he was absolutely FEROCIOUS, animated, loud,
   arrogant, and full of piss and vinegar.  Although I happened to feel
   that he was a complete jerk (as did seemingly everybody else who knew
   him), he was far from the vegetable the book makes him out to be.
   So, with all that said, when the book arrived the other day, I was
   absolutely blown away at the high quality of the resultant effort.  The
   book is considerably larger than I was expecting (it's 13x11 inches)
   and the photography is simply stunning.  There are beautiful photo
   spreads of most of the cars in the De Tomaso family collection
   (although since they don't have a GT5 or GT5-S, those are absent, and
   apparently their Pantera Si broke down and they didn't want to bother
   towing it to be photographed so it's absent too).  There are historical
   photos directly from De Tomaso's family archives that have never been
   seen before, and will never be seen anywhere else.
   And there's the story.  Given their well-established propensity for
   shading the truth, one has to wonder exactly how accurate it all is,
   but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about their
   telling of their early history at least.  It's certainly educational (I
   learned a lot!) and fascinating.
   So at the end of the day, even with all the caveats and asterisks, this
   is far and away the best De Tomaso book ever made, and if you have even
   a passing interest in the marque, you owe it to yourself to get a copy!
   Mike
   P.S.  It's worth noting that purely by coincidence, another
   Italian-market book on De Tomaso has just been printed; it was released
   on September 30th.  It's in Italian only and seems to be a much more
   modest effort (208 pages, paperback?).  I've only seen pictures of the
   book, but the few pages I saw revealed images I'd never seen elsewhere,
   so that might be worth digging up as well if you're really a nut about
   this stuffa|.
   Here it is on the publisher's website:
   [4]http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-toma
   so.htm
   Not available on Amazon USA, but it is available on Amazon Italia:
   [5]http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947
   and from numerous other European retailers as wella|.

References

   1. mailto:detomaso%40poca.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BDeTomaso%5D%20On%20writing%20a%20book%20on%20De%20Tomaso....&In-Reply-To=%3C3c4293.32525d66.43a5bf90%40aol.com%3E
   2. http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-tomaso.ht
   3. http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947
   4. http://www.edizioniilfiorino.com/catalogo/sport/0488/automobili-de-toma
   5. http://www.amazon.it/Automobili-De-Tomaso-Dante-Candini/dp/8875495947