De Tomaso [2]

De Tomaso Automobili (previously known as De Tomaso Modena SpA) is an Italian car-manufacturing company. It was founded by the Argentine-born Alejandro de Tomaso (1928–2003) in Modena in 1959. It originally produced various prototypes and racing cars, including a Formula One car for Frank Williams's team in 1970. Most of the funding for the automaker came from de Tomaso's brother-in-law, Amory Haskell Jr, Rowan Industries. In 1971, Ford acquired an 84% stake in De Tomaso from Rowan with Alejandro de Tomaso himself holding the balance. Ford would sell back their stake in the automaker in 1974 to Alejandro.

In 2009 the De Tomaso trademark was bought by Former Fiat executive Gian Mario Rossignolo who founded a new company named De Tomaso Automobili SpA. 

At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, De Tomaso presented a new model. The new De Tomaso Deauville was to have been a five-door hatchback/crossover vehicle with all-wheel drive, which, in the details of its styling, quotes models from BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The proposed range included two gasoline engines with 300 PS and 500 PS as well as a diesel from VM Motori with 250 PS. The Deauville remained a prototype, as the new company never started production and the company chairman, Rossignolo, was arrested in 2012 on account of misappropriation of funds taken from the Italian government to revive the De Tomaso brand. As a result, 900 employees of the company were made redundant. Rossignolo was sentenced to five and a half years of imprisonment on the charges of fraud and embezzlement in 2018.