Do We Need To Make A Three Row Hyper SUV For Those With Unlimited Cash But Very Limited Taste?

“Once you can afford to eat, the rest of it is just a game”

I’m not sure if I have that statement exactly right, or even know where I first heard it, but I do believe it. Beyond subsistence living it all comes down to imagined needs versus perceived ones. In the automotive world that idiom certainly holds true.

If we’re being blatantly honest, a beige 2004 Toyota Corolla would serve quite well for the purposes of ninety-five percent of people ninety-five percent of the time. Nobody needs a Koenigsegg Whatever to get to work, drive to the store, or join up with friends. Anything beyond the basics comes down to an interest in greater comfort, higher performance, or most frequently, expressing whatever it is the driver feels they’re telling the world by way of the automobile they drive.

ToyotaThe vehicle-as-avatar-for-driver becomes especially apparent when you get into cars and particularly SUVs that cost as much as the typical single-family home, like the Lamborghini Urus and Rolls Royce Cullinan. The fact is most “lesser” sport-utes that list for $100,000 or so are able to fulfill what can realistically be described as the “needs” of even the most demanding customer. From Lexus’ offerings with refrigerators in the center console to Land Rovers trimmed in fine leather and wood to Porsches that can get to sixty as fast or faster than many sports cars, there is no logical reason to spend twice the sticker price of those outstanding multipurpose machines and similar models.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m honestly not judging. You want to have a retracting Spirt Of Ecstasy hood ornament in something that’s supposed to go off road? Have at it. You’re ideal machine is a big (Audi) motor in a (Volkswagen-based) SUV that’s had its roof squished down and is somehow now a Lamborghini? Go to town. All I’m trying to do is understand what a person spending over $200,000 might be looking for, and it appears to just be pure, hedonistic silliness. Why do I want to have an understanding of these economically unchallenged people’s non-predicament? Because it appears those in the market for one of these outlandish things has little to nothing to choose from if they need a functional third row of seats. That lack or surplus seating represents a gaping hole in the market big enough to drive a LaForza through (foreshadowing there), and I want to change that.

The question you have is how would I do it, and what brand will I use?

The Car, Not The Metal Band

While there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth at large American car companies during the financiapocolypse back in the late 2000s, there’s one group of automobile makers for which that situation would just be an average Tuesday: boutique exotic car brands. While Ferrari has lived in the loving embrace of Fiat for half a century, nameplates such as Lamborghini, Maserati, Lotus, and TVR have struggled out in the cold with periods where they teetered on bankruptcy. They have all been kept alive in various forms through either being bought and sold by larger car firms or getting cash infusions from wealthy Chinese and Russian investors. One vaunted name with such a checkered past is De Tomaso.

Born in Argentina into a politically prominent Italian family, Alejandro De Tomaso’s history makes him sound a bit like “The Most Interesting Man In The World” in real life. Implicated in a plot to overthrow leader Juan Peron in 1955, he fled to Modena, Italy and married an American heiress. After racing in several Formula 1 events, he eventually started the high-performance sports and racing car firm that bore his name.

His best-known products were sports cars with mid-mounted Ford V8s, the first being the wild Giugiaro-designed 289 or 302-powered 1967-70 Mangusta.

Tom Tjaard-penned the Mangusta’s successor, the Pantera with a 351 Cleveland behind the two seats. Launched in 1971, the Pantera stayed in production until 1992, though later models were gorped up with fake Countach flares and wings, and the output from the factory near the end amounted to but a trickle.

Besides providing engines, Ford actually had an 84 percent stake in the company from 1971 to 1974. Enzo Ferrari might have been persona non grata in Dearborn, but Alejandro was reportedly good friends with then-Ford-President Lee Iacocca. Ford had exclusive rights to offer the Pantera in America through Lincoln-Mercury dealerships, and they soon learned that selling a low-volume Italian exotic was not the best idea. By most accounts, Pantera production cars were not really ready for prime time when they arrived off of the boat; they had rather serious quality issues and underdeveloped cooling and electrical systems. Regardless, Lincoln-Mercury stores sold a total of 5,500 Panteras before calling it quits in 1975, a rather impressive and staggeringly high number for an exotic car.

Elvis Shot His

For whatever reason, De Tomaso’s GT cars have always felt like outlaws to me. Maybe this is because of their roughneck muscle car motors, but more likely the reason is that most of their appearances in popular culture and media were typically notorious. Elvis Presley famously shot his yellow Pantera when it one day refused to start, and the bullet holes in the steering wheel and floor remain to this day. Hockey great and donut impresario Tim Horton died in the crash of his own white Pantera, and rocker Vince Neil’s wreck of a similar car took the life of Razzle, drummer for the band Hanoi Rocks. Horton and Neil were both significantly impaired by alcohol and/or drugs when they crashed their respective Panteras, so it’s safe to say that neither wreck was the car’s fault. As for Elvis ventilating his example … well, Elvis gonna Elvis.

Though innocent, if you will, in those unfortunate events, the Pantera and DeTomasos nonetheless have stuck in my head as nefarious machines. It’s likely the real source of my associating the mark with notorious goings-on comes from the most perfect pairing of movie character and car ever put to film: Kill Bill‘s bad-ass namesake uber-villain (a perfectly-cast David Carradine) and his even-more-bad ass DeTomaso Mangusta.

These Maseratis Don’t Do 185

There were no new full-scale production DeTomaso sports cars beyond the Pantera. Alejandro did attempt to get into the more lucrative luxury coupe and sedan market with the Longchamp and Deauville models. Seemingly rip-offs of the Mercedes R107 and Jaguar XJ6 respectively, these also-Ford-powered models typically were automatics (with a Ford Mustang T-stick selector sticking out of the floor) and sold only in the hundreds.

Then, in an odd twist, Alejandro (and the Italian government) purchased ailing Maserati from Citroen in 1976. After that, Mr. De Tomaso seemed to focus on getting that brand into shape with higher-production-number luxury sedans (the De Tomoso Deauville-based Quattroporte III), affordable coupes (the underrated Biturbo), and another collaboration with his buddy Lee Iacocca (the rather panned TC Coupe) instead of making new sports cars that bore his name (we’ll try to forget the Dodge Omni 024 Detomaso, please). Whatever your opinion of these De Tomaso-era Trident-badged cars now, if not for Alejandro’s efforts it is almost certain that the Maserati brand would be living with Cisitalia and Hispano Suiza six feet underground today.

Later history of the De Tomaso brand is the expected-for-a-boutique-car-brand tale of woe. Allejandro died and 2003; the company went into liquidation the next year. The new buyer of the factory and trademarks in 2009 embezzled funds and went to jail following a 2012 bankruptcy. A Hong Kong-based team bought the rights in 2015 and has been teasing concepts since then.

Oh Great, Another Hypercar I Have Zero Interest In

For their next car, the new De Tomaso company has looked to one of Alejandro’s first cars for inspiration: the slick one-off P70 prototype racer:

The resulting P70 “tribute” is the Ford-powered P72 (to the left below) and more race-oriented P900.  It’s been described as “drop-dead gorgeous” by some in the press, yet I personally think that the designer has pushed things a bit too far beyond the original source. The actual P70 echoed the restraint of the similar era Alfa 33 Stradale, and like Alfa’s latest revival of their own car the De Tomaso P72 pushes the original into exaggerated Speed Racer Mach V territory. Why have subtle air intakes when you could have something big enough to stick your head into? Gently tapering sides? No, let’s go all Anna-Nicole-Smith-on-wheels with over-the-top curves.

The De Tomaso website currently lets you “register your interest” in one of these cars, which I assume means that even if you want one of the seventy-two proposed production P72s you’ll possibly have to wait a long time. At around $3 million a pop for a P72, the total dollar figure of revenue actually equates to around $200 million in funds to the new De Tomaso company, and that’s after all of the cars are sold; not a lot to work with for a 2024 car company. The De Tomaso site does let you buy “lifestyle” items; the old man would likely roll over in his grave if he knew that the company with his name was selling 120-euro branded hoodies to raise money. There is a reason why Mr. De Tomaso wanted to make things like the Quattroporte and the Biturbo; volume cars are the only way to succeed, and hopefully throw off enough cash to get things like the rather absurd P72 in production.

The cash grab of most boutique car makers recently has been SUVs, and this could be an ideal place for DeTomaso to get up and running. I’m surprised that nobody has made a hyper-luxury-ute with three real rows of seats, but it’s rather tragic that these poor top one percenters can’t have such a truck. Here’s where Detomaso could step in.

A Hundred Horsepower Per Passenger?

Alejandro DeTomaso realized that he wasn’t going to be able to make his own engines; the current incarnation of the firm seems to feel that same way and also plans to use Ford powerplants for their P72. To make a legitimate super bespoke car, you’ll want to spend money on sizzle and not necessarily the steak, especially when there’s plenty of steak to go around. If he were alive today, De Tomaso The Man would likely ring up Bill Ford in Glass House (who would likely take his call) and pitch his idea.

For DeTomaso’s leather-lined truck, the best approach might to use not only a motor from the Blue Oval brand but pretty much an entire vehicle. Let’s face it; you’ll work long and hard to try to make a big SUV as good as the Ford Expedition from scratch. With limited development funds for a low-volume car, it might be prudent to use that as a starting point and make it better.

A mom-and-pop truck? Sure. Come on, do buyers care that their Bentley and Lamborghini sport utes share many components with brands for the unwashed masses like Porsche and Volkswagen? Most of them don’t even know. De Tomaso buyers never seemed to care that their hand-crafted Italian mount had a hardscrabble motor from the Rust Belt; most were likely glad that they didn’t have to find the One True Genius in a five-hundred-mile radius to synchronize the carburetors every five thousand miles. No, our De Tomaso Ghepardo (Spanish for Cheetah) will not only be the only true three-row super-luxury SUV on the market but one of the most reliable and easiest to service for your $250,000 plus “investment.” Can we make a silk purse out of, I don’t know, a nice quality canvas bag?

Obviously, Ford already offers a luxury Expedition in the form of the Lincoln Navigator, but the De Tomaso Ghepardo will go in a different, far more sporting and exclusive direction. There’s no “Expedition Raptor” offered now, and I don’t necessarily want that kind of SUV either, but I do like one thing about F-150 Raptor R: its 700-horsepower Carnivore supercharged V8. Putting this monster into a regular Expedition would make for a dangerous combination, which is why we will tweak the chassis to deliver handling and braking up to wielding such a potent powerplant.

Near the end of his life, De Tomaso was apparently a fan of Bertone’s Marcello Gandini, a designer possibly most famous for the Lamborghini Countach. One of the last projects that Alejandro worked on was a sports coupe called the Bigua (later changed to a revival of the Mangusta name). Gandini penned this rather odd-looking semi-retractable-hardtop convertible that ended up being produced (in very small numbers) and named after Alejandro’s partner (Kjell Qvale) after the two had a falling out.

Naturally, we’d attempt to emulate the Gandini style, something that the Urus does to some extent with rather sharp edges, angular wheel arches, and exaggerated fender flares. To expedite production, the De Tomaso SUV would keep the basic greenhouse from the Expedition (with some modifications) and merely reskin the lower section of the body. Coachbuilders like Monteverdi did this trick back in the seventies to make a handcrafted luxury sedan out of something as prosaic as a Plymouth Volare:

You’re stuck with the basic shape of the Expedition, including the tall nose. The low grille with four exposed lights (driving lamps and turn signals) tries to emulate the aggressive face of the original Mangusta and to visually lower the height of the truck (the actual projector lights are in dark bands below the hood). Remember: the goal is to be silly and outrageous, so when you pull up to the nightclub they know you’re The Man (or The Woman).

In back, we’re stuck with the Expedition’s profile (and need for third-row headroom) which requires that rather odd wraparound body-colored rear pillar over the glass and black-painted upper body section behind it to attempt to create a “fastback” look (not entirely successfully) and fool the eye. The full-width taillight with radiused upper edges mimics the back of the original Mangusta.

 

Massive tires would be mounted on wheels that designer and builder Chip Foose developed for a restomodded Pantera– talk about a niche market for a set of rims. I’m not always a fan of his car updates but these wheels are exactly the kind of modern update of the original alloy that I wanted.

Ultimately, you simply can’t make a sporty-looking SUV out of an F-150-based box (and that flat tailgate), but unfortunately that won’t necessarily stop people from buying it if you make it exclusive enough

Stay Flashy, My Friends

The interior of the new De Tomaso P72 is “gorgeous” in the same way that the outside is “drop-dead beautiful”. Every surface that isn’t covered in leather is covered in polished, painfully overwrought faceted chrome (even the steering column). The black-on-white gauges feature overly fancy-looking illegible fonts and the tachometer even has goddamn Roman numerals so you can rev it up to VIII thousand. Naturally, with the glare and everything-reflecting-off-of-everything you won’t be able to see anything anyway. Once again, if this sort of pretentiousness is what the high-dollar customer wants, that’s what they get. Regardless, our 1983 Grand Marquis wagon and my friend’s 1978 Buick had silver-faced instruments framed in heavy chrome and we laughed at them.

You want this kind of crap? I’ll give you this kind of crap. Unlike in the seventies, you can’t just build a new interior and dashboard out of fiberboard, throw in gauges, and wrap it in leather. Systems today are so complex that we really need to use as much of the Expedition controls and dash as possible; it’s not a bad instrument panel to begin with. The De Tomaso Ghepardo (somehow sounds like “Don Pardo” of Jeopardy fame) would wrap the existing seats in diamond-patterned fine leather, and the instrument panel would gain carbon fiber trim and polished metal accents not unlike the P72, including inserts in the gauge cluster (but we’d reformat the graphics to fit within the trim pieces). Special steel mesh-covered climate vents and a leather and carbon fiber cover for the steering wheel would finish off the ruse. Obviously, if this isn’t far enough out there, De Tomaso could add bespoke things like a refrigerator and drinks cabinet for the second row of passengers.

Yes, it’s silly of course, but nobody seemed to avoid buying the Lexus LX series even though it was just an “uptrimmed” Land Cruiser (in fact, it usually outsold it). The important thing is that under all the expensive fluff on the Ghepardo are Ford truck bits that should hopefully last for hundreds of thousands of miles instead of catching fire for no reason in a few…weeks.

Shut Up And Give Them Their Bling

As with most of the posts I do for the site, the designs are done tongue-in-cheek but sadly end up being a lot more valid than I expected them to be. Alejandro was cognizant of what a solid business plan looked like; you have to create products in profit-generating higher volume markets if you want to reach the goal of ultimately making the kind of flight-of-fancy sports cars you really want to build. Also, as stupid as this Ghepardo looks and sounds, a seven-passenger full-sized SUV with 700 horsepower somehow makes more sense than a 1000-horsepower two-seater.

With cars like this Ghepardo my mom always told me “We’re not that kind of people”. She drove things like a Volvo 240 and BMW E39; super ostentatious things were frowned upon in our house. I’m afraid that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree: if you gave me three million bucks, put a gun to my head, and made me buy one car I’d likely get something painfully tasteful (and depreciation-proof) like a 365GTB/4 Daytona Spyder in grey (on Cromodoro alloys, not wire wheels, since those are too showy).

Still, just like at my real job, I’m not creating a product for myself; I have no problem with designing something for “those kinds of people”. There are plenty of well-heeled celebrities and children of Russian oligarchs needing a painfully, disgustingly flashy three-row status-symbol truck that could benefit from one of De Tomaso’s American-powered exotics, just as there were fifty years ago.

I don’t imagine any of them unleashing a firearm on one if it doesn’t start, but I could be wrong.

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