L he history of the brand founded by the Argentine Alejandro De Tomaso seems to share some traits with Swedish Saab. A Although the actors involved, neither does stay afloat, despite the passing years.
In the case of De Tomaso, as close to its resurgence was the acquisition by the Italian Gianluca Rossignolo who after having kept the rights to the brand, introduced a prototype low the format of an SUV called De Tomaso Deauville, was introduced under the Geneva Motor Show 2011.
But Rossignolo defrauded the Italian tax and ended up behind bars, but not before selling the Deauville production rights to Chinese NAC. The story had a sad ending, since 900 employees were on the street and was never produce even one.
De Tomaso regains owner and promise a sporty two-seater. Next year will be a prototype.
Already by the end of 2013 the Italian firm Automobili Turismo e Sport , a company born in 1962 at the hands of three former employees of Ferrari and had its heyday in the decade announced the acquisition of the rights of De Tomaso flag with which sought to manufacture some of their sports.
But the joy was short lived because in September 2014 announced the withdrawal of the offer and moving their operations to the islands Canarias.Desde then the fate of the mark was suspended and was rumored to BMW You might be interested.
But last week it was announced that the commercial rights would come to auction and today’s L3 Holding , a society of origin Swiss-Luxembourgish was who bought the brand rights for a price of € 2.05 million . L3 holding is next to Genii Capital one of the owners Lotus Formula 1 team They had together made the initial offer De Tomaso early this month, although not officially confirmed if both were finally participated in the acquisition.
The auction held by Judge Giovanna Dominici started with a base price of 580,000 euros offered by L3, as improvement over 570,000 other Chinese bidder, the group Ideal Time lacking a business plan and was offering only the rights of the trademark.
In race was also the Italian company Eos , but like the Chinese lacked a business plan and just wanted to acquire the rights to the brand.
The only one who has proposed a business plan and industrial revival has been L3 Holding with an articulated project to restart production of cars provides for 360 jobs between 2017 and 2021. At the hearing, Patrick Louis, former CEO of Lotus and head of automation of Genii Capital announced that activities will begin next week.
Moreover promise a first prototype 2016 , since the idea is to produce some two-seater sports 4,500 per year , taking advantage of the knowledge acquired Lotus in Formula 1 , especially in the field of carbon fiber . We will have to watch closely if this time the story is true.