De Tomaso chairman faces day of wrath

The fraught life story of tier-two Italian supercar maker De Tomaso took another turn for the worse recently with the arrest of several executives vested with the task of breathing life back into the once-loved marque.

Reuters and other agencies reported in July that Italian tax police have arrested chairman Gian Mario Rossignolo and two others in relation to the possible misuse of 7.5 million euros (AUD$8.75 million) of public funds earmarked to get the company back on the road.

Back in the day – meaning the 1960s to the 1980s – De Tomaso put some pretty stunning looking machinery on the road. Most famous, mainly because it was the commonest, was the Pantera, of which more than 7000 units were sold between 1971 and 1992. But before it, as far back as 1963, came the obscure Vallelunga; replaced in 1967 by the beautiful Mangusta (pictured), noted for its hallmark split rear windscreen.

All were lithely beautiful in an oh-so-Italianate kind of way. But the brand never seriously penetrated the Italian pantheon for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the brand’s progenitor, Alejandro De Tomaso, wasn’t of the tribe – he was Argentinian. Secondly, rather than sink time and money into developing engineering pedigree under the bonnet, the company opted for Detroit iron care of Ford, first using Henry’s 289ci (4.7-litre) V8 before moving on up through the 302 (5.0-litre) Windsor and the 351 (5.8-litre) Cleveland mills – names and numbers familiar to any Aussie who knows their Falcon GTs.

British magazine Car summed up the purist attitude towards such a strategy by sneeringly describing the Pantera as “a bit of a hot-rod”. They weren’t wrong – as it aged, it found its naturally neat lines obscured as the lingerie got fussier, the rear wing expanded and the rubber got fatter.

But the company was a player in its day. It owned Maserati between 1976 and 1993, sharing platforms – its own Deauville sedan with the Quattroporte III, and its Longchamps coupe with the Maserati Kyalami. The De Tomasos used Ford power; the Maseratis used the Italian marque’s own engines. This being the period that also spawned models like the 1980s Biturbo and Karif – whose marketing devoted more effort to their Cartier clocks than their prowess on the road – it was not the finest 17 years in Maserati’s history.

De Tomaso first went into voluntary liquidation in 2004, although it continued selling its unmemorable Guara model for some time after. For the next four years, court-appointed liquidators searched in vain for someone to buy the brand and its trademarks.

Then, in 2009, along came the flamboyant former Fiat marketing boss Gian Mario Rossignolo, also known for what Reuters describes as “a short and turbulent stint” as chairman of Telecom Italia SpA in 1998.

Rossignolo announced big plans to graft a known name on an aluminium spaceframe technology he’d been promoting called Univis. De Tomaso seemed perfect for the purpose. So, initially, did Bertone’s contract manufacturing business, at least until he was elbowed out of purchase deals for it by rivals.

Instead, with the help of a five million euro grant from the region of Piedmont, he bought himself a former Pininfarina plant near Turin in 2009 and announced plans to go to market with his first vehicle in 2011.

His plans, it seems, mimicked those Porsche used to get out of financial trouble: graft your premium name on to a SUV or crossover, sell lots of them and use the profits to go back to the traditional De Tomaso territory of beautiful coupes and sports cars.

Rossignolo planned to pitch this first effort, dubbed SLC, not at traditional rivals like Ferrari or Lamborghini but at premium mass-market models from the BMW, Benz, Audi, Porsche, Lexus and Infiniti.

Unveiled just before the 2011 Geneva motor show, the prototype SLC proved at least as hideous as anything that ever carried the Cayenne badge. It appeared amid talk of powerplants ranging from a 410kW V8, 224kW V6 and 186kW V6 turbodiesel, from where nobody ever mentioned.

By the end of 2011, the company had gone rather quiet on its future, although Cars UK and others were reporting that Rossignolo had hocked the rights to build a new Deauville to a Chinese maker, generating millions of euros to reprise the Pantera. Nothing came of it and by mid-2012, Rossignolo and his colleagues announced they were looking for cash and credit.

By July it was once again going into liquidation, and by month’s end authorities were announcing Rossignolo’s arrest. At last report from Reuters, they were investigating bank accounts belonging to him, his HR boss and a financial intermediary to determine if they had dipped into millions of euros the company was granted to help retrain 1000 Pininfarina workers who have sat in idle anticipation of work since 2010.

According to the Reuters report, police said in a statement that investigators believe the trio may have used a false bank guarantee to obtain funds from the region of Piedmont and the EU – money that appears to have made its way into private bank accounts. Piedmont authorities have already demanded their five million euros back.

Rossignolo remains under house arrest. And De Tomaso is deader than it’s ever been.

Picture courtesy Craig Howell/Wikimedia Commons

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