The product of a brief and ultimately short-lived partnership between two of the automotive world’s true mavericks, this 1965 Shelby/DeTomaso P70 Prototype racer was developed by Carroll Shelby in collaboration with Alejandro DeTomaso. Exactly how the partnership initially formed is lost to time, but its raison d’être was that Shelby was looking for a replacement for his Cooper-chassis King Cobra racers that, with the no-holds-barred Can-Am series due to open in 1966, would soon be obsolete. The combination of Shelby’s management acumen, DeTomaso’s engineering experience and Peter Brock’s design skills seemed the perfect marriage of talents, but the project, dubbed P70 (prototype 7.0-litre) proved a short-lived affair. DeTomaso was certainly a pioneering thinker. He was the first to design a midengined car using the engine and gearbox as stressed chassis members, a concept quickly adapted by Lotus founder Colin Chapman and Eric Broadley, whose Lola sports racer begat the Ford GT40. Another DeTomaso innovation of the same period, a central backbone chassis composed of a single large alloy cylinder that also contained the fuel supply became the basis for DeTomaso’s first production road car, the Vallelunga; it also convinced Carroll Shelby to approach DeTomaso about building six Ford-powered Shelby/DeTomaso sports racing prototypes, using the same chassis concept, for the new Can-Am. In addition to the innovative chassis, DeTomaso committed to producing a high-powered version of the Ford 289 small- block with his own cylinder heads and dry-sump lubrication. Shelby’s close associate and team designer Peter Brock penned a typically beautiful and innovative aerodynamic body for the P70 that featured a device he had first conceived for the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, but that device was dropped due to time constraints: a movable rear wing that could be adjusted by the driver to maximize downforce in the corners and under braking, as well as minimize drag at high speed. Brock oversaw the prototype’s fabrication at Carrozzeria Fantuzzi in Modena, but with the car nearing completion, word came that Shelby was withdrawing from the project to give his full attention to Ford’s GT40 project. Undaunted by Shelby’s departure, DeTomaso took possession of the completed P70 and boldly presented it to the Italian press in Modena as the first product of his recent takeover of Italian coachbuilder Ghia, which he had recently purchased. Soon thereafter, he introduced the car to the public at the Turin Auto Salon in November 1965, further promoting the Ghia brand and building anticipation of its European racing debut in FIA competition. However, that was to be its last public appearance; suddenly and inexplicably, the P70 was dismantled and set aside in DeTomaso’s Modena factory, and the entire project was abandoned. The remains languished in storage for decades until automotive historian and race driver Philippe Olczyk unearthed the body panels at the DeTomaso factory in 2004. Their authenticity confirmed by designer Brock, the components were subsequently purchased and reassembled in order to display the largely complete but unfinished car at the 2005 Quail Motorsports Gathering. It was again presented in the same condition at the Quail in 2013, where it surprised everyone by winning Octane Magazine’s Best of Show award. Subsequent to that surprise win, the P70 prototype was painstakingly restored to its original configuration, complete with Italian Red paint and gold-painted wheels, dark-tinted windscreen and Gurney-Weslake 289 CI small-block Ford V-8 engine. The P70 appeared for the third time at the Quail in 2015, earning the award for Best Postwar Racing Car. In the spring of 2016, it was displayed at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance and ran in the Eight Flags Tour. Today presenting in concours condition, this historically significant artifact of a magic era in automotive history signifies a unique collaboration between three of the period’s most important figures and is eminently worthy of the most exclusive collections.
