Alejandro De Tomaso was a high school classmate of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was anti-Peronist, participated in an attempt to overthrow Perón, in 1955, and fled the country in a small plane with two suitcases full of money.
This Argentine lover of cars and speed, came to participate in two Formula 1 races, settled in Modena, Italy, and there created the sports car brand that bears his name and that at the beginning of this century, succumbed after the death of its founder 20 years ago, on May 22, 2003.
When the rebirth of the company was underway and with a new super car that already accumulated orders, a scandal with complaints and accusations of fraud put in check the reappearance of a brand that was a symbol of speed in the 60s and 70s.
Alejandro De Tomaso, next to his most famous creation, the Pantera.
The scandal was uncovered by the former CEO of De Tomaso, Ryan Berris, who filed a lawsuit against the company and its owner, Norman Choi, a Hong Kong financier and current owner of the rights to the brand that Don Alejandro had founded.
Fraud, checks and lies
Ryan Berris, who joined De Tomaso Automobili Holdings NA, in 2014, as CEO and lead developer of its current project, the P72 supercar. The former CEO filed a lawsuit against Choi in Manhattan federal court, in the United States.
According to Berris, he was fired last year because it stood in the way of Choi's plans to move forward with a blank check merger based on false information, according to the story published on Autoblog.
De Tomaso P72, presented at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed. (Photo: James Lynch, Goodwood.com)
"Choi became obsessed not with making the perfect car to resurrect De Tomaso and serve the company's most discerning customers, but with trying to take the company public through a fraudulent process," Berris said in the complaint.
The whistleblower claims he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and a 10% stake in the company that was once valued at up to $1.500 billion.
The De Tomaso brand, best known for the Mangusta and Pantera sports cars it introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, filed for bankruptcy in 2004. The rights to his name were eventually acquired by Choi and a partner in 2014.
By Tomaso Mangusta.
According to Berris, Choi contacted him soon after, and the two met at a racetrack in Spain. At the time, Berris was working for Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG), an American manufacturer of racing and high-performance road cars.
Berris accepted the proposal to command the revival of De Tomaso and set about developing the P72, which was first presented at the 2019 Goodwood Festival. It was a tribute to the De Tomaso P70, a legendary 1965 prototype developed jointly by Alejandro De Tomaso and Carroll Shelby.
The new model was offered with an entry price of $1 million and proved to be a sensation, as within days it received legitimate purchase inquiries that exceeded the 72 units initially planned for launch.
Alejandro De Tomaso, chatting with Juan Manuel Fangio.
By early 2022, De Tomaso had received about $36 million in non-refundable deposits, and demand far outstripped supply, Berris said. According to his lawsuit, he tried to raise more money to increase production of the P72, but Choi began to take a different approach.
"Choi began making decisions behind Berris' back, creating false financial statements and deceiving discerning customers who were already depositing huge sums of money to secure a De Tomaso vehicle," Berris said.
The former CEO said Choi breached his fiduciary duty to De Tomaso by using more than $10 million in company funds to buy an apartment at Manhattan's Hudson Yards.
Choi also allegedly told his future investors that he put $3.1 million of his own money into De Tomaso, but Berris claimed the financier made it clear to him in a text message that the money came from Sino Vision Worldwide Holdings Ltd, a shell company associated with the so-called Red Enigma, a group of 50 Hong Kong companies identified as stocks to avoid because of their questionable business practices. and its lack of transparency.
De Tomaso's film life
Alejandro was the son of a conservative politician (Minister of Agriculture of President Agustín Pedro Justo) and a woman descended from a wealthy Spanish family, He had as a schoolmate Ernesto Guevara, who would later be better known as El Che. And for a time he wrote in the Economy section of the newspaper Clarín.
Alejandro De Tomaso, a movie life with a love for cars.
De Tomaso was an avowed anti-Peronist and even participated in attempts to overthrow former President Perón in 1955. That forced him to escape to Uruguay, piloting his own plane and with two suitcases loaded with money, obtained after the sale of some fields.
Then he went to Italy and devoted himself fully to cars. He began working at Maserati and in that period met and married Elizabeth Haskell, granddaughter of William Crapo Durant, one of the founders of General Motors. This allowed him to have his back to create his own brand, in 1959.
The Argentine installed his headquarters in Modena, and from his factory came models such as the Vallelunga, the Mangusta and the Pantera. In addition, De Tomaso became the owner of Moto Guzzi, Innocenti and even Maserati itself, which later ended up selling it to Fiat.
Alejandro De Tomaso built a Formula 1 car for Frank Williams
The original Pantera was built between 1971 and 1993. But it was at the beginning of its production when it found its glory day: from the beginning until 1979, 6,579 units were sold of the 7,082 that were manufactured in total.
This model had the special participation of Ford, which joined theproject with the engine of the Mustang Boss. The Detroit company found in the development of the Argentine the ideal vehicle to continue trying to "harm" Ferrari, which had refused in the 60s to be absorbed by the American giant.
In competition he had a couple of participations in Formula 1, in races of 1957 (with a Ferrari, in the GP of Argentina that Juan Manuel Fangio won) and 1959 (GP of the United States), but not with good results. And in 1970 he had built a car for Frank Williams himself.
Alejandro De Tomaso, a car lover who made his way into the world of sports cars.
In 1993, Alejandro De Tomaso suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in a clinic to recover from the semi-paralysis that caused him, where he had as a companion none other than Federico Fellini.
He died on May 22, 2003, in Modena. And when it seemed that the company was going to reappear, this new scandal puts a mantle of doubt on the relaunch of the De Tomaso brand.
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