De Tomaso makes return with stunning P72 supercar

De Tomaso used the Goodwood Festival of Speed to unveil the new P72 and it appears not everyone is a fan.

While the car is pretty stunning, it also looks a bit familiar. James Glickenhaus believes there’s a good reason for this as he suggested the model is nothing more than a copy.

In a tweet posted by Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, he accused De Tomaso of putting “tracing paper over our P3/4” and then pasting “much” of the design from the P4/5. He also accused the company of stealing interior design details from Pagani.

He summed up his sentiments by saying “I see Koons not Caravaggio.” This appears to be a reference toAmerican artist Jeff Koons and Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

The tweet also quoted Jesse Glickenhaus as giving Google’s definition of a copy as “A thing made to be similar or identical to another.”

We’ve reached out to De Tomaso for comment, but the P72 does share a number of similarities to the P4/5. The whole front end looks like an evolved version of the P4/5 and canopy is also similar. However, there a bigger differences further back as the P72 features more flamboyant bodywork, larger intakes and unique side skirts.

While we’ll update this article when / if we heard back from De Tomaso, but the company has previously said the P72 was designed by Jowyn Wong and inspired by the P70. That car was a joint project between Alejandro de Tomaso and Carroll Shelby. The partnership frayed and was eventually dissolved “on the eve of the car’s completion.” De Tomaso pressed forward with development and tapped Ghia to help him complete it. The finished model was eventually displayed at the 1965 Turin Motor Show as the Ghia-De Tomaso Sport 5000.

De Tomaso is a truly international carmaker. It was founded by an Argentinian racing driver, it's ostensibly based in Italy, and it's owned by a Hong Kong-based group of investors. Now, it has announced the next leap in its geographical game of hopscotch will take it to America, and it brazenly claimed it will bring global glory back to our industry.

"We're deeply committed to returning America's automotive industry to its golden era of design, and to the treasured respect it earned between the 1920s and the 1960s," De Tomaso explained in a statement, one which firms like Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus could reasonably disagree with. It added its main goal is to create opportunity rather than compete with established American carmakers. Not out of consideration for its peers in an economic landscape that looks like a minefield, but simply because it positions itself a cut above everyone else.

Executives have crafted a long-term strategic plan called Mission American Automotive Renaissance (AAR), which outlines the process De Tomaso will follow to relocate its core production, design and corporate facility to the United States. Where? It's too early to say, because talks with several state governments are ongoing.

An announcement is expected in the next six months. Meanwhile, engineers are continuing to fine-tune the P72 (pictured) developed jointly with Roush and introduced in 2019. It will be the first De Tomaso of the 2020s, and it will be built largely by hand in the state the company ends up calling home starting in the fourth quarter of 2022
De Tomaso explained its decision to move to the United States was driven by the void it's seen over the past several decades. It also wants to help reduce the skills gap in American automotive design and craftsmanship. And yet, it also plans to form strategic partnerships with major automakers and suppliers in the United States.

Has the American industry really not built anything noteworthy since the 1960s? Is it doomed to the point where it needs a little-known company that hasn't manufactured a car in nearly two decades (and that has never developed its own engine) to step in and save it? Both of these rather off-color statements are debatable, but diving further into this matter would breach the scope of this story. We'll wait to see whether De Tomaso can keep its word, or if it enters the history book as yet another cash arsonist that speaks a great deal but does little.

American roots

De Tomaso's ties with the United States are decades-old. It sold the Pantera (shown above), a mid-engined coupe designed by Detroit-born stylist Tom Tjaarda and powered by a Ford-sourced V8, through Lincoln-Mercury showrooms between 1971 and 1974. About 5,600 units found a home in the United States before Ford pulled the plug on the project and sold its stake in the firm. Production continued without the Blue Oval's input until 1992.

Exactly 60 years after De Tomaso was founded – and 15 years after the original iteration of the company folded – the automaker marked its return with the gorgeous P72. The svelte coupe debuted at the 2019 Goodwood Festival Of Speed with a Ford V8 engine boasting upwards of 700 horsepower (515 kilowatts).

But that was just the prototype, and now we wait anxiously for the first of the 72 production examples to hit the road, which should happen sometime next year. In anticipation, De Tomaso rolled a beautiful baby blue prototype onto the lawn of the Concorso D'Eleganza Villa D'Este in Lake Como, Italy last weekend – further whetting our appetite for this fantastic supercar.

Photographed here by Freddie Atkins, who goes by the username TFJJ on Instagram, the images show the P72 both static and in motion along the shores of Lake Como. This isn't the first we've seen this particular shade of blue on the P72, admittedly; the same prototype spent some time in Florida for The Amelia, the Miami Concours, and elsewhere over the past few years.

That baby blue exterior opens up to a contrasting white interior with quilted leather on the seats and a matching diamond-patterned aluminum on the center of the steering wheel and surrounding the instrument cluster. Even the aluminum gear lever boasts the same diamond pattern.

De Tomaso initially planned to build the P72 and all future vehicles at a production facility in the US. Unfortunately, pandemic-related disruptions forced the company to look elsewhere, with execs finalizing a new manufacturing plant and a test facility near the Nurburgring in Germany.

As mentioned, the first examples of the De Tomaso P72 should make their way to customers in 2023. The company is planning a limited production run of just 72 units globally, each one with an estimated asking price of around $890,000 (€750,000).