Qvale Mangusta

Owners will have some explaining to do.

October 2000
BY AARON ROBINSON

There's nothing wrong with Webster's dictionary that couldn't be fixed by including one six-letter word you hear quite a bit while operating a weird car. The word is "huhwha," it is usually posed as a question, and the context is thus:

"Say, man, what is this thing?"

"A Qvale Mangusta."

"Huhwha?"

It's an efficient little term capable of expressing (a) bafflement, (b) the urgent need for clarification, and (c) the concept that if you had only spent the dough on a Porsche, this conversation wouldn't be necessary. A few expert users include a Tennessee trooper in a Jeep Cherokee who slid alongside and asked if the Mangusta was a BMW Z8. Okay, so they all look the same to the fat end of a radar gun, but really!

Later, at 70 mph on the freeway, a Georgia Cadillac driver who excitedly tried to press his door handles into the Mangusta's composite fenders wanted to know if Qvale is "Ford or GM?" Actually, that's a fair question in these days of global consolidation. The Mangusta is definitely more Ford than it is anything else familiar.

Alas, the Qvale isn't a Ford, even though it has a bone-stock Ford SVT Mustang Cobra V-8 under the hood. And it isn't a De Tomaso, either, although it was the last time it appeared in this magazine (May 2000). Before you say "huhwha?" -- it would be improper usage anyway -- let's briefly explain.

Alejandro de Tomaso, the Argentine ex-racer who sired the original 310 Mangusta coupes built between 1966 and 1972, unveiled a car at the 1996 Geneva auto show called the Bigua. Nobody blinked until March 1998, when a San Francisco car dealer named Kjell Qvale (pronounced "shell kah-vah-lee") agreed to pay for its development.

These two patriarchs go way back. Qvale was a Mangusta distributor in the 1960s and later imported Maserati Biturbos and Quattroportes during the dark years when de Tomaso owned the factory. Qvale also owned Jensen for a time and created the 1972-76 Jensen-Healey.

However, the families fell to squabbling over distribution and licensing issues. Just last March, Qvale and his son, Bruce, who manages the carbuilding enterprise, opted to go solo after having plied almost $30 million into the project. What they lost was the halo of de Tomaso's name. What they gained is the experience of hearing "huhwha?" wherever they go in their car, plus a very noteworthy address.

The new Qvale factory on the outskirts of Modena sits in the same broad valley between the Apennines and the Ligurian Alps that is to sports cars what Wisconsin is to butterfat. The Qvales figure people will view the Mangusta's $84,200 asking price more favorably if the car is screwed together in Enzo Ferrari's ZIP Code instead of an Oakland warehouse. Of course, the real challenge is convincing prospects that the Mangusta is more than just a rebodied Mustang and worth the $50,000 premium over a Cobra. Also, that it's a better choice than the similarly priced ragtops from Porsche, Jaguar, and Mercedes they'll have to walk past to get one.

Well, at least it's no rebodied Mustang. Look beyond the Mustang powertrain, the EPA-approved Mustang fuel system, the Mustang steering column, and the Mustang interior bits such as the gauges and switches, and the Mangusta is a bona fide Latin exotic.

For one thing, the lines of the roadster's three-layer molded resin body come from Marcello Gandini, a prominent resident of the aforementioned Italian valley whose doodle pad also produced the Lamborghini Miura and Countach. Note the Mangusta's canted rear-wheel arches, a Gandini trademark. Furthermore, the all-steel, 640-pound chassis is hand-welded from flat sheets and tubes by Vaccari & Bosi, the small Modenese firm that employs the same materials to make similarly constructed undercarriages for Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini.

To some eyes, the Mangusta's high hood line, chunky rocker panels, and bulging fanny straddle it with a bit too much cellulite for a sports car. Closer inspection does reveal elegant details, including the delicate metal screens over the side scoops and taillights, the sculpted venturis in the side mirrors, and the four pipes jutting out the back.

Qvale's home-grown Rototop offers three separate modes, but the Mangusta definitely looks sharpest with its top completely removed. Dropping the structure is a three-step routine. Remove the lightweight center panel by undoing a pair of latches (that takes 10 seconds), drop the push-button targa section behind the seats or face a toupee-shredding windstorm at speeds above 40 mph (10 seconds), and stow the center panel in the trunk (10 minutes). The panel is a scant few millimeters narrower than the trunk opening, and it only goes in one way. Wedge it in wrong, and the trunk latch leaves a nasty scratch.

Once in, the roof panel completely consumes the paltry five cubic feet of trunk space. Golfers will have to leave the panel at home and pray it doesn't rain -- or that they don't blow a tire, as there's no spare.

The Mangusta's best side is its inside. Visteon, Ford's parts operation, supplies much of the cockpit and gets an embossed logo on the seat bolster for its trouble. The leather-clad dash, seats, and trim are unique to the Mangusta and feature miles of perfectly triple-stitched seams. The nifty chairs hug the body in turns but are roomy and pliant enough to keep the backside happy on long drives. Fancy chrome bezels ring the shift gate, each of the door pulls, and the climate control plate. The billet shift knob is a lovely piece.

The Mangusta does have some annoying eccentricities. The side glass doesn't go all the way down, a true sin in a convertible even though the Mangusta provides some room for perched elbows on the wide door trim panel. Also, the left-mounted hand brake can be reached only by awkwardly squeezing an arm down between the door panel and seat. Maneuvering feet out through the narrow slot between open door, seat, and brake handle requires the skill of a Suez Canal pilot to avoid scuffs.

Despite the Italian atmosphere, the Mangusta basically feels like a Mustang on the highway. The seats are elevated off the floor like a Mustang's, and the view over the flat hood is pretty much the same. The steering feels similarly slow and numb, and the Cobra's heady V-8 rumble is no headier in the Mangusta.

Even though the Qvale is 360 pounds heavier than a Cobra, the two cars clocked virtually identical acceleration times (C/D, April 1999). Both reach 60 mph in 5.5 seconds, and their quarter-mile performance varies by just 0.1 second and 1 mph, with the Cobra running just ahead of the Mangusta's 14.2 seconds at 100 mph.

The Mangusta uses the same Tremec T45 five-speed with widely spaced ratios. The 3.23:1 rear end, an Australian BTR unit also supplied to the Oz-built, GM-produced Holden Commodore, is only a smidge taller than the Cobra's 3.27:1 pumpkin and makes do without traction control.

Fear of the EPA smog police prevents Qvale from fiddling with either the electronic brain or the six catalytic converters on the 4.6-liter DOHC V-8. So the advertised 320 horsepower and 314 pound-feet of torque are nearly identical to the Cobra's. At test time, Qvale was still waiting to install engine kits provided by Ford to fix a horsepower shortage detected by owners of the 1999 Cobra. The kit, which is covered by warranty, includes a new intake manifold and a less-restrictive exhaust.

Through the hills the Mangusta defaults to understeer near the limit, and the rear end is practically impossible to break loose. Tall gearing, lazy turn-in, and meaty low-profile Michelin Pilot Sports (a $2310 option that includes 18-inch Antera wheels) deserve the credit/blame for ensuring that the Mangusta is more safe than fun.

The car's 0.80-g performance on the skidpad and 197-foot stopping distance from 70 mph are somewhat disappointing, especially considering that the elements for better braking and handling are all there: big tires, Brembo calipers on 12-plus-inch discs, and four pairs of independent control arms. The likely villains are the superfluous pounds, no available ABS, and a chassis set up to provide stable grand touring rather than twitchy tossability.

Yet the Mangusta tries hard to please. With the top completely off, the cabin is well shielded from turbulence at highway speeds. The extremely rigid skeleton keeps the treads firmly planted and the scuttle from jiggling over bumps. The suspension controls the heavy car's wallow sufficiently to make entertaining work of fast bends, and the engine inhales dawdlers with a fearsome Yankee roar.

Living with a Mangusta will become much easier when Qvale fixes a few defects. The roof center panel flutters and twists at highway speeds, generating a persistent, maddening squeak. Plus, the frazzled weather stripping around the test car's top was clearly designed for some other duty. Qvale says the 200 or so cars built for 2001 will have a third roof latch in the center for reinforcement, and the company has sprung for tooling of its own rubber. While they're at it, how about adding cruise control?

Ultimately, the Mangusta's biggest selling point is that there won't be hordes of them parked at the country club. People will dig deep for cars they aren't likely to see coming in the other direction. If a Mangusta owner does, at least for once there won't be any explaining to do.
BRAD NEVIN
Why would anyone pay $50,000 more than the price of an SVT Mustang for this Qvale? The answer is simple: exclusivity. Buy a Mangusta, and you will meet more people at gas stations and answer more questions than you would in almost any other car. But that's about all you get. From the moment you sit in the driver's seat to the second you get home from a 20-minute drive, you clearly feel that this is a repackaged Ford. The engine note, the transmission, the gauges, and the radio and climate controls all scream, "I'm a Mustang!" To which you have to ask: Is the funky styling worth it? For me, no. For $85,000, I'd buy a Porsche 911 over a Mangusta in a heartbeat.

FRANK MARKUS
A rose is a rose? This car looked ugly to me when it debuted as a show car named, perhaps aptly, Bigua. But the promise of open-air motoring and a sort-of retractable hardtop with bulletproof blue-oval V-8 power and the magic words "De Tomaso Mangusta" attached had a definite appeal. Who would care that the rear window is plastic, that everything squeaks, that it steers like a cop car, that parts drop off on every trip -- mamma mia, that's Italian! Foibles are what Italophiles kibitz about at car shows. But with a weird dragon badge and an unpronounceable Scandinavian name, it's suddenly just a bad car. I guess a rose by any other name might smell like last season's lutefisk.

LARRY WEBSTER
I'll never say that every car has to make sense, but the Mangusta passes over my head. Maybe it has to do with the styling, which doesn't match its exotic birthplace. Or perhaps the silly targa top that promises hardtop comfort and droptop pleasure but squeaks like a rusty door hinge and selfishly hogs the entire trunk when stowed. The $86,510 price is way north of the better Porsche Boxster S. And then there's the thick driver's door, which snagged my foot every time I tried to exit. Anything good? The seats are supportive and comfy, the ride is compliant, and the handling secure. But that's not nearly enough to make me part with 85 grand.