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In less than a week blueprints of
Brock’s innovative open two-seater
body design were on their way to Italy
where DeTomaso’s metal workers
turned them into an aluminum body.
In January of 1965 DeTomaso un-
veiled the P70. The designation stood
for Prototypo 7-Liter. The body was
mounted on an engineless mocked-up
chassis and as soon as Shelby and
Brock saw it, they were both disap-
pointed. It only barely resembled
Brock’s original design.
The clock was ticking, so Brock
was sent to Italy to personally super-
vise the construction of a new body. He
spoke no Italian. He was met at the
airport in Rome by DeTomaso who, on
the way to Modena, explained the con-
cept of his backbone chassis and how
the new 7-liter V8 would be attached
to it, becoming an integeral part of it
along with the transaxle.
During the drive, Brock also be-
came aware that DeTomaso was not
happy that Shelby had dispatched him
to oversee the project. He took it as
something of a personal insult, imply-
ing that Shelby did not have confi-
dence in him to complete the car. As he
sat there. it dawned on Brock that he
was in the middle of an intense rivalry
between the two. He just needed to
keep his eye on the ball and not get
sidetracked and drawn in.
The next day the new chassis was
loaded onto a truck and it and Brock
were delivered to Carrozzeria Fan-
tuzzi, a small shop on a back street of
Modena. It was one of many that spe-
cialized in building one-off bodies for
show and race cars. DeTomaso did not
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2016 31
The completed maquette (a French word for scale model or an unfinished sculpture)
was made of solid steel lengths, hand-formed and welded together, over which the alu-
minum bodywork was formed. Brock was used to making a plywood buck.
King Cobra plywood buck used to con-
struct a replacement body during a recent
restoration.
Alessandro DeTomaso was no stranger to Shelby American. These pictures were taken
in the spring of 1965, while he and Shelby were still “partners” in the P70 project.
The P70 was mostly complete when this photo of Peter Brock was taken in Modena.
The smile indicates that Shelby had not yet pulled the plug on the car.