1965 DeTomaso Sport 5000 Spyder

This DeTomaso Sport 5000 prototype is the sole example produced and was featured on the cover and in an article of the March 1966 issue of Road and Track. Developed by Peter Brock alongside Medardo Fantuzzi in the Fantuzzi workshop, it used de Tomaso's backbone chassis design with a mid-mounted, race-tuned Ford 289 cubic-inch V8 engine acting as a stressed chassis member.

The engine breathed through four Weber downdraft carburetors and had aluminum heads, special camshaft, cam timing and ignition, and delivered 475 horsepower at 7,300 RPM. It was paired with a Colotti-inspired five-speed transaxle with disc brakes all round.

The prototype that preceded this example was named the P70 and had been designed for the free-wheeling North American Can-Am series. The Brock-designed bodywork disqualified it from the more stringently regulated FIA Group 7 class. The DeTomaso Sport 5000 Roadster was the solution and was the first of ten intended for production with the prospect of an additional forty examples to comply with homologation requirements. Instead, it was the only example produced and its racing career was brief before it was put into storage and vanished for decades.

After Alejandro de Tomaso's death in 2003, the Sports Prototype was acquired by a Belgian collector for his estate in 2005 and subsequently passed into US-based ownership.

By Daniel Vaughan | Dec 2022