Originally to be marketed as a new De Tomaso Mangusta, the Ford Mustang-engined, Gandini-styled, Italian-built Qvale Mangusta seems mechanically sound, but looks stylistically weak. Qvale and De Tomaso had a well-publicized falling out which is now tied up in Italian courts, so the marketing of the new car is going forward under the Qvale crest. Like any small sports car maker, I wish them success in their adventure, but without attractive styling, it's hard to say how well they'll do. At 3300 lbs, the Mangusta is a bit heavier than the similarly engined but Aluminum chassis Panoz Esperante.

The Qvale name has a long and distinguished history in helping create the U.S. sports car scene. Kjell Qvale's San Francisco-based British Motor Car Distributors, Ltd. was one of the first importers of MG, Jensen, VW, Austin Healy, Truimph, Jaguar, Lotus, Rolls Royce, and others into the U.S. Kjell is also a founder of the Sports Car Club of America and helped organize the original Pebble Beach Races and later the Laguna Seca race course. Kjell's son Bruce heads the current Mangusa effort in Modena, Italy.

Lamborghini Diabolos and ever-stunning and radical Miuras were numerous, though I only spotted one "cheese grater" Countach and a handful of Espadas, etc.

Alfas were a bit thin, as were Lancias, but no Italian show could be complete without them. A rare Alfa Romero Montreal is on the left and a current Alfa Romeo street car, not currently sold in the U.S., is on the right.

Several smaller houses were represented such as:

Iso,

Intermeccanica,

along with the new Pagani Zonda, which is a Mercedes V-12 powered mid-engined supercar built in Modena. The Zonda generated a lot of interest.

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