I thought I'd share a couple of pics I saw of a Qvale Mangusta. A "Q-what???" you ask? I vaguely remember reading about them years ago and then I spotted one the other day and I just happened to have my digicam with me. Here's some info on the car.

From 1966 to 1972, Alejandro de Tomaso (an Argentine Formula 1 car builder and racer) had 310 Mangusta coupes built with the de Tomaso name on their tails and Ford Motor 4.7-liter V-8s under their hoods. These cars were able to top 155 miles per hour and found a very limited U.S. fan club. The Mangusta eventually became the Pantera, and that car faded from the scene in the mid-1970s. In 1996, however, de Tomaso revived the brand with the car you see here. After some feuding, de Tomaso agreed to drop his name from the cars themselves, and the Qvale family of San Francisco (a one-time importer of the original Mangustas) agreed to build the cars in Modena, Italy, and sell them in the U.S.

All that said, a Mangusta isn't a 100% Italian exotic. Yes, the body is made in Modena, just like Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis, and it was penned by the same man--Marcello Gandini--who sculpted the Lamborghini Countach. But at the heart of a Qvale is a Ford-built 320-horsepower Cobra motor and fuel system (as well as a few ancillary Ford bits like gauges and switches).




I also saw a very rare Nissan Skyline in the L.A. It was as rare a sighting as the rain that was falling so heavily that day. You can make out the badging on the rear. (Sorry for the blurry pic.) Funny, this Skyline looks suspiciously like an Infiniti G35.

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