The Shelby Mangusta MK IV project
© Johnny Capor, Dave Alzeyer, Wolfgang Kohrn, 2003, last update August 2011

 


(Note: Picture enlarged despite low resolution)

Picture G. Labe: 
The "Shelby Mangusta" reappeared after its restoration at a car show in Leipzig/Germany. Same car? Most probably. The Shelby stickers are club stickers used after 1975.


This picture sourced from Dave Alzeyer through the De Tomaso registry shows the Shelby MKIV emblem in the front grille. It is known that Ford/Shelby were looking into a Cobra successor, yet Shelby pulled out, when he got the GT40 job. 
De Tomaso renamed the car to Mangusta (Moongoose = Mangusta eat Cobras)
If this was the real design prototype, it is the only one with an emblem. The project was not followed up.

This Ford factory photo shows the same car without the emblem. We have to assume that the above picture was taken the same day with a Shelby emblem and one without. It is exactly the same camera position. What disturbs a bit is that there are no signboards as usual in Ford Design center pictures.
Back then in 2002 I stumbled over an ad in a german magazine for a Shelby Mangusta.
As is expected by us enthusiasts I contacted an SAAC registrar immediately back then.
"No way", he said, "there was no Shelby Mangusta, it is a common Shelby sticker used after 1975 only. Might be a Shelby owner, who put this sticker on his car. "

A swedish contact (Johnny Capor), who is/was into De Tomaso cars and is racing a Saleen SR7 since 2009, sent me a picture of the car in question back then. 

I never lost interest in this one however and once and then I read a line about it, but no further news appeared over a long period. Heard the car was on sale for more than 3 years.

 


It took 8 more years until Dave Alzeyer pointed me again to a Shelby Mangusta racer with the Shelby stickers on display plus  he had found some new pics on the web, especially from the De Tomaso registry, which we - untypical for this site, so sorry - borrow here for a while, until we get permission or remove them in case of new ones.

Dave researched further and came up with these bits of information:
"The Mangusta in the black and white pic that you posted could have been yellow like this one. They both have black mirrors, but the large holes in the rocker panel are not there, unless those weren't holes but instead black painted circles.
This yellow Mangusta with Shelby stickers was in Stritzling, Germany in 2007 at the Streicher Vehicle and Art Museum. Unfortunately everything in there museum is also for sale, so the car may be long gone."
We are just sending our club member Stefan to the museum to check it out.

Dave continued after some mail contact with other researchers in Italy:
"The man that rebuilt/restored the 1968 "Shelby" Mangusta (chassis number: 8MA 778) is non-other than Pantera GR4 race builder William Sala. Back in the 1970's he was the official race preparator for the De Tomaso factory. His racing garage went under the name Sala & Marverti, which stood for William Sala and Giovanni Marverti. Sala would recieve special VIN'ed lightweight Panteras directly from Alejandro De Tomaso himself. The shop that he operates from now is located in the surrounding countryside outside of Modena, Italy."
We hope to have some more information from William Sala himself on this car soon. 

The car as of 2017 is located in Munich/Germany




 

 
   

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