The De Tomaso P72 Is Finally Ready For Production

It’s been just under six years since we first saw the dramatic, retrofuturist lines of the De Tomaso P72, the first car from a revived version of Italy’s other esoteric Argentine-founded low-volume supercar maker. You’d be forgiven for wondering if we’d ever see it hit production, but hit production it has, and the car you see before you is the finished article.

It looks pretty much identical to that first concept car we saw in those distant days of 2019, with its looks inspired by the 1965 De Tomaso P70, a one-off open-top sports racer that mated a chassis developed by De Tomaso with a tuned Ford V8 engine from legendary tuner Carroll Shelby.

The P72 features a similar pairing – sitting in the middle of the car is a 5.0-litre Ford V8, bolstered by a supercharger and forged internals. It produces 690bhp and 605 lb ft, and while it’s sad to lose the screaming Ferrari-based V12 that powered the prototypes, we can’t be too sad about the substitute, especially when it’s hooked up to a six-speed manual gearbox with a gorgeous exposed linkage.

The early prototypes used the V12 because they were based on the underpinnings of the ludicrous Apollo Intensa Emozione, the two companies sharing ownership. The production P72, though, is built around a bespoke carbon fibre chassis with a one-piece monocoque at its core. Hung off it is a pushrod suspension system with manually adjustable three-way dampers.

Like with so many other low-volume supercars these days, the word ‘analogue’ pops up a lot in De Tomaso’s material around the car. That applies to the interior in the most literal sense, which does away with the de rigueur digital instruments of modern cars for a set of analogue dials.

In fact, there’s not even an infotainment screen to be found in here, although De Tomaso has included a phone holder so you can run your nav and your tunes. Everything in here is said to be hand-crafted, from the stitching on the leather to the milling of the aluminium components.

There are no drive modes to fiddle around with, either, and that ‘analogue’ mission statement is perhaps also why De Tomaso hasn’t quoted any performance figures, saying only that “the powertrain is tuned not for top-speed dominance, but for exhilarating in-gear performance.”

This launch car isn’t one of the 72 planned production units, but an internal production-spec car showing off one of the available “heritage-inspired” paint schemes. If they’re a little old-hat, customers can also spec the bodywork in bare carbon.

Speaking of customers, the P72 is sold out, and has been since 2023. Those extremely patient souls can expect to finally start receiving their cars later in 2025, although with each car reportedly starting at around €1.6 million (around £1.35 million), we’re sure they’ve had enough money to tide them over in the meantime.