De Tomaso - de Tomaso Luxury Cars

De Tomaso Luxury Cars

Although De Tomaso is principally known as a maker of high-performance sports cars, the firm also produced luxury coupés and saloons in tiny number throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

The 1971 Deauville was De Tomaso's attempt to rival contemporary Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz saloons. With the same engine as the Pantera mounted in the front, the Deauville was clothed in an angular Tjaarda/Ghia four-door body. The Deauville did not compete with its rivals, especially those from Germany, on the quality of its build. Despite remaining on De Tomaso's books until 1985, only 244 were ever made. A single example of an estate was built for Alejandro de Tomaso's wife, the American racing driver Isabelle Haskell.

In 1972 De Tomaso introduced a coupé based on the Deauville, the Longchamp. The Longchamp used a slightly shortened Deauville chassis and had the same Ford V8 engine. The body design, however, was substantially different, and influenced by the Lancia Marica prototype, also designed by Tom Tjaarda. A total of 409 Longchamps of all variations were built, by the time the production ended in 1989.

In 1976, Alejandro de Tomaso, with the assistance of the Italian government, took over Maserati after its owner Citroën declared that it would no longer support the loss-making company. The first Maserati that the De Tomaso regime introduced, the Kyalami, was a redesigned Longchamp by Frua, with the Ford engine replaced by Maserati's own 4.2-litre V8. The Kyalami remained in production until 1983, when it was superseded by the Maserati Biturbo, introduced two years earlier.