The name “Mangusta” is one that gets all motorheads giddy.  It’s the Italian word for “mongoose”–a perfect animal name for the car that it was bestowed upon.  The De Tomaso Mangusta is still ranked highly as one of the best combinations of Italian style and American power, with its stunning, menacing early 1970s Giugaro lines, gull-winged engine bay, and stump-pulling Ford small-block V8 (a few had the 351 V8).  Only 401 were ever built from 1967 until 1971, but in the 1990s and early 2000s, someone brought the name back–and the car had some strikingly similar characteristics to its namesake.

I first learned of the name “Qvale” in or around 2001, when I was flipping through DuPont Registry on my way to Florida to see my grandparents and realized it was the first brand I couldn’t pronounce.  It was quite a car for its time, although it bore a number of throwbacks to the De Tomaso of the Sixties.  In fact, it was originally to be called a De Tomaso, but after it was put on sale, a disagreement caused Alejandro de Tomaso to dissolve his relationship with Bruce Qvale, forcing the name to change.  The Mangusta of 2000 shared an important characteristic of the older one–Italian style (this time by Marcello Gandini) with Ford power.  Design work began in the early to mid 1990s, with the first prototype appearing in 1996.  The car took another few years to finish design work and finally had a production version available for viewing in 1999.  It was advertised in magazines for “higher-income” individuals, such as the Robb Report, DuPont Registry, and JetSet.  

One of the Mangusta’s most interesting claims to fame was its 3-way roof.  In almost every picture I saw as a kid, it was a convertible, but I saw a few with the targa roof.  Believe it or not, it’s all the same.  The top, designed by Gandini, is complex–but it’s like nothing else.  The Roto-Top is in two parts.  The top panel can be detached, forming a targa top, but the rear portion rotates around and stows away behind the seats, turning the car into a true convertible.  The interior was trimmed in Italian leather and with parts from only the best suppliers.  Strangely, due to the disagreement with De Tomaso and Bruce Qvale, the car was sold as a Qvale in the United States, but carried a De Tomaso badge on its front end (one of the only cases I know of a car being sold as one brand but badged as another completely).

The Mangusta went on sale in 2000, with a starting price of about $79,000.  It was an interesting design, and Ford gave it propulsion through its 4.6L Modular V8–specifically, the naturally-aspirated, 320hp one from the Mustang SVT Cobra.  Notably, it was available with manual or automatic transmissions (which makes this the only time the 320hp 4.6 was available with an automatic).  The only option was a set of alloy wheels.  Unfortunately, despite good reports on its driving dynamics and acceleration, along with an excellent interior, reception was a bit frigid, and Qvale had to cut prices by $10,000 just nine months after launch.

In the end, less of the Qvale Mangusta were built than the DeTomaso Mangusta of the Sixties and Seventies; by the time production came to a close, 284 left the factory.  Just 21 of them got equipped with an automatic (I’ve yet to even see one), while 401 of the original ones were made.  Rarity, however, has not helped the Mangusta in the used car market, as prices have crashed to earth faster than a stockbroker in 1929.  I looked around and found a few Mangustas for just $25,000–a bargain for an Italian exotic, but rather strange for such a rare automobile.  So, like the one that inspired it, the Mangusta is a flavor which few have tasted–but unlike its predecessor, few know of it.

-Albert Davis