A couple of very rare De Tomaso cars for sale.

When you think of De Tomaso, the image of the mid-engined Pantera and Mangusta supercars come to mind. If not, then perhaps De Tomaso's ownership of Maserati and the resultant Biturbo. Either way, I bet the De Tomaso Longchamp does not come to mind.

The Longchamp was a front-engined GT produced from 1972 all the way until 1989. Designed by Tom Tjaarda, the styling bears more than a passing resemblance to the Mercedes R107 SL, which may not be entirely coincidental since the Longchamp's four door relative, the De Tomaso Deauville, closely resembles the Jaguar XJ6.  Why De Tomaso wanted these cars to look like their rivals is unclear, but in both cases they are rarer and therefore rather more interesting than the mainstream contemporaries.

The Longchamp sports the same Ford Cleveland 351 V8 engine used in the Pantera, and came with either a 3-speed automatic transmission or a 5-speed manual. The Longchamp also spawned a Maserati derivative in the Kyalami, which used the same chassis but replaced the Ford engine with a 4.9 litre Maserati V8 and featured revised front and rear styling.

Production moved at a glacial pace with only 323 being made in its seventeen-year life. Of these, only fourteen or fifteen were the rare Spyder version so it was something of a surprise to find two of these are currently for sale on Carandclassic.co.uk.

The first is listed as for sale in Germany, and according to the ad is one of only three Spyders with manual transmission. It is a 183 example finished in red with black leather seats which look invitingly comfortable but also seem to lack any form of lateral support. It also sports quad circular headlamps when most other Longchamps have single rectangular headlamps. The car is advertised for a whopping £95,000.

The second is for sale in Australia and is a rather more reasonable £56,000. It's right hand drive, too. I've no idea how many Longchamp Spyders are right hand drive, so this may be unique. It's a later GTS version with flared wheel arches and is finished in what the vendor describes as 'Ferrari blue' (which may excite DC's own Martin Spain, since he's a big fan of Ferrari's Tour de France blue).  The car also sports some flashy alloy wheels which look to be non-original and may be enlarged replicas of the original Pantera wheel that many Panteras sport these days. There is also a YouTube clip of the car which is a little too long but does go over the car in detail.

To be honest, I have no idea whether the Longchamp Spyder is any good as a car, since there are almost certainly no road tests, either period or classic. However, Classic and Sportscar magazine were very complementary about the hardtop GTSE version in a recent roadtest, rating it as better than an Aston Martin V8. 

If you fancy an Italian open GT which looks a bit like a German one, sports an American V8, and will almost certainly be the only one at any car show you go to, then the advert for the German one is here and the Australian one here.

• Tweet