Mangusta

The mongoose is an animal capable of killing cobras. Legend has it that the car was named after a failed deal between entrepreneur and racing driver Alejandro De Tomaso and Carroll Shelby. De Tomaso had volunteered to help U.S. racer Carroll Shelby develop a new racing car called the Cobra, but for various reasons the project failed and De Tomaso was forced to fall back on a different project with a great desire for revenge.

The bodywork was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, who by then had taken over as chief designer at the Ghia body shop in Turin, adapting to the Modenese chassis an earlier design of his that had been rejected by Iso Rivolta, but which had delighted the new customer. The result was a very low line (only 1100 mm in height) that detracted from roominess, but was the right compromise between elegance and aggressiveness and was characterized by a huge windshield and a split hood with a gull-wing opening. Giugiaro on the Mangusta realized a composite aesthetic exercise of flat elements and anticipated the protruding frame enclosing the grille and headlights, a solution later taken up by other manufacturers. With this car the designer transforms and surpasses the curved, sinuous lines he was drawing until recently for Bertone. Such exterior refinement was contrasted, however, by a particularly sparse interior, in keeping with the idea of a road-appropriate racing car advocated by the manufacturer.

Production of the Mangusta began in 1967, at the same time that De Tomaso acquired the Ghia body shop.