Mongoose

Mongoose (pronounced mong-goos or mon-goos)

(1) Slender, ferret-like carnivores, any small predatory viverrine mammal of the genus Herpestes edwardsi and related genera, occurring in Africa and from southern Europe to South-East Asia, typically having a long tail and brindled coat; feeds on rodents, birds, and eggs, noted especially for its ability to kill cobras and other venomous snakes; known in Italian as the mangusta.

(2) Any of several other animals of this genus or related genera.

(3) Any species of the Malagasy mongoos; only distantly related to the Herpestidae, these are members of the family Eupleridae; they resemble mongooses in appearance and habits, but have larger ears and ringed tails.

1698: From the Portuguese mangusto, from the Marathi मुंगूस (muṅgūs), from the Old Marathi muṁgusa, from the Telugu ముంగిస (muṅgisa).  The Portuguese mangusto was concocted to refer to the "snake-killing ichneumon of India, from an Indic language (of which the Mahrathi variations are the best known), probably ultimately from Dravidian.  Other Indian forms documented during the Raj were the Telugu mangisu, the Kanarese mungisi and the Tamil mangus.  The English form is mongoose but in most languages where the word exists, it’s as a variation of the Portuguese mangusto (mangusta the spelling in Italian, Polish and Lithuanian).  In the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries, the spelling in English was mungoose, derived from the names used in India including the Hindi muṅgūs (maṅgūs in the classical Hindi), the Marathi muṅgūs, the Telugu mungisa and the Kannada munguli, mungi & mungisi, the form displacing the native Old English nǣderbita (literally “snake biter”). The spelling mungoose emerged in 1698, the “-goose” part adopted by virtue of folk etymology with goose and the noun plural is mongooses, not the occasionally seen mongeese, the mistake an understandable by-product of the example of "goose" and an example of why English must sometimes seem strange to those learning the language. There is no accepted collective noun, suggestions including troop, committee and delegation.  The correct plural is mongooses because of the origin in India; the plural thus built in the regular English way.  Goose is different and one of only seven common nouns (all of which can be traced back to the Old English) in which changing a vowel in the middle is involved in the construction of a plural.  Three are beasts (louse/lice; mouse/mice & goose/geese) two are body parts (foot/feet & tooth/teeth) and two are humans (man/men & woman/women).  The woman/women this is unique in that the first vowel also changes sound, even though the “o” stays in place.

The mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal of the family Herpestidae, split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae; in the former there are some two-dozen species native to southern Europe, Africa and Asia while the later exists in half that number, all native to Africa.  A famously efficient hunter of snakes, in the 1870s, mongooses were introduced to the Caribbean colony of St Lucia as a control measure against the deadly fer-de-lance (from either the French or Créole and translated variously as “iron of the lance”, “iron spear point”, “lancehead” or “spearhead”), the local name for the Terciopelo (Bothrops asper), a species of pit viper.  The voracious little killers proved more effective than the Governor's bounty of sixpence per fer-de-lance which had yielded a disappointing 1200 victims in seven months.

Mongooses enjoying morning tea, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda: The interaction between the mongoose and the usually disagreeable common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus; an un-domesticated member of the pig family (Suidae) endemic in the savanna & forests of sub-Saharan Africa) is an example of symbiosis in nature.  In what behavioral zoologists call a "mutualistic partnership" (which they distinguish from true symbiosis), a resting warthog will allow mongooses to gather and perform some grooming, snacking on the annoying biting ticks which infest their coats.  

The De Tomaso Mangusta

Dance of death: Cobra and Mongoose.

Argentine-born Alejandro de Tomaso (1928-2003) in 1955 fled to his father’s native Italy after being linked to a plot to overthrow President Juan Perón (1895–1974; Argentine president 1946-1955 & 1973-1974).  In Latin America, that wasn’t something at the time unusual, young, middle-class men having long been attracted to scheming against left-wing rulers to the point where in some families, it was a calling.  In Italy, he married a rich heiress, spending her money to go racing (without notable success) and, (rather more productively), building fast cars.

Shelby American Cobra: Fiftieth Anniversary 427 SC Continuation (2014, 50 of which were built, allocated serial #CSX4500-CSX4599).

In 1964, he met Le Mans winner, Carroll Shelby (1923–2012), famous also for his Anglo-American hot-rod, the AC Shelby Cobra.  They entered into an agreement to build racing cars for the up-coming Can-Am series but squabbles between the two ensued, the arrangement ending in acrimony.  De Tomaso continued to develop the vehicle, this time as a road car which, in revenge, he named Mangusta (mongoose), a beast renowned for its skill in hunting and killing snakes including Cobras.  Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (b 1938) of Ghia, between 1967-1971 some four-hundred Mangustas were produced and although the details are contested, the 150-odd are said to have been powered by the same highly-tuned 289 cubic-inch (4.7 litre) Ford (Windsor) V8 as the most numerous of Shelby’s Cobras, the remainder using a milder 302 (4.9 litre) Windsor for the lucrative US market, the 302 compliant with their more onerous emission regulations.

1969 De Tomaso Mangusta (289).

Achingly lovely though it was, adapting a race car for the road necessitates compromises and the Mangusta had not a few.  A 32/68% front/rear weight distribution delights racing-car drivers but induces characteristics likely to frighten everybody else and the interior was cramped, something tolerated in competition vehicles but not endearing to buyers looking for something with which to impress the bourgeoisie.  However, it sold well enough to encourage de Tomaso to pursue the concept and the better designed (if less beautiful) replacement, the Pantera (Italian for "panther"), lasted from 1971 to 1993, over seven-thousand being sold, some with the Australian-built Ford 351 (5.8 litre) V8 (which continued usually to be referred to as the "Cleveland" (a reference to the Ohio plant where the US versions were first built) even though most of the blocks were cast in the foundry attached to Ford Australia's manufacturing facility in Geelong, Victoria.  The idea of a "351 Geelong" never caught on but a footnote in Ford's V8 history is the Australians also concocted a unique "302 Cleveland" (all other pre-modern 302s using the earlier "Windsor" block).

1970 De Tomaso Mangusta (289).

As a road car, the Mangusta was fundamentally so flawed it really couldn’t be fixed; seen first in 1966, it came from those innocent times before Ralph Nader (b 1934) got politicians interested drawing up rules, some of which admittedly were both desirable and overdue.  However, even had it been possible to re-engineer the thing into something well-behaved enough for real people safely to drive (and what Porsche's engineers achieved with the 911 proved such things could be done), there was no way it could have been adapted to conform to the laws which began with severity to be imposed in the 1970s.  The solution was the Pantera, designed with a copy of the regulations in one hand and a cheque from the Ford Motor Company in the other, FoMoCo interested in having in their showrooms a competitor for Chevrolet’s Corvette.  Discarding the Mangusta’s steel backbone chassis for a steel unibody, with a 44/56% front/rear weight distribution, inherently the Pantera was safer in non-expert hands and contemporary testers praised the handling characteristics.  Its sales volumes never challenged those of the Corvette but in the four years it was available in the US through Ford's Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, well over 5000 were sold although Ford was required to inject significant resources to ensure quality control was maintained (infamously, the US singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977) one morning shot his when it refused to start).  

1972 De Tomaso Pantera.

This time, De Tomaso used the 351 cubic inch version of Ford's new 335 series (Cleveland) V8, which, although somewhat bigger and heavier than the earlier Windsor, did offer some advantages in that it was designed with emission controls in mind and used a more efficient cylinder head.  None of that much helped in the market conditions which prevailed in the recession induced after the first oil shock in 1973 and sales declined to the point where Ford concluded any continuing investment was no longer viable; in 1975 the arrangement with De Tomaso was terminated.  After the withdrawal from the US market, De Tomaso maintained production on a smaller scale, the majority sold in Europe and it enjoyed a long Indian summer, the final examples not leaving the factory until 1993 by which time output had slowed to a trickle; the final count when production ended after 19 years was 7260.  After 1988, there was a switch to the Windsor V8 because Ford Australia (Cleveland V8 production moved to the Geelong foundry after 1974), reacting to both the second oil shock in 1979 and changing customer behavior, in 1983 closed the line (they would later realize that had been a mistake and in 1991 began importing US built V8s which would remain available until the Australian operation was closed in 2016).  De Tomaso accordingly warehoused Australian 351s which powered the Panteras until the stockpile was exhausted.

1985 De Tomaso Pantera GTS.

Disappointingly, despite on paper appearing to possess a promising specification, there was never a stellar career in competition although factory support was offered and private teams ran regular campaigns.  Conspiracy theorists have long attributed the paucity of success to the more established players like Ferrari and Porsche having undue influence on the regulatory bodies (such as the habitually dopey Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation)), nudging them always in directions favouring their machines.  It had been done before.  Doubts had always been expressed about the suitability of the Cleveland engine for competition because the lubrication system lacked the passages which made the Windsor so robust but there were work-arounds for that and the factory arranged small runs of Panteras which conformed to the FIA's Group 3 and Group 4 racing regulations (some of which owners later converted to Group 5 specifications) but consistent success proved elusive.  De Tomaso however knew his market.  Even if he couldn’t often beat the Porsches and Ferraris on the track, as the years went by the Panteras adopted increasingly wild styling and they certainly looked the part although it'll always be remembered as a car for the boulevard rather than the track, one in 1972 memorably awarded to Playboy's playmate of the year (PotY), finished in the magazine's then traditional pink.

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Giallo Cromo (chrome yellow) over Nero (black) leather.

For its final run, the bodywork was updated by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) and given the designation Pantera 90 Si, 41 of which would be built; two were sacrificed to crash-testing, one (chassis #9641) was allocated to the de Tomaso museum and 38 were offered for general sale.  The touches of Gandini (noted for his work on Lamborghini’s Miura (1966-1973) & Countach (1974-1990, first displayed in 1971), the Lancia Stratos HF (1973-1978) and Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968)) were more subtle than previous revisions to the design.  The 90 Si (it was sold in the UK market as the Pantera 90) used the Windsor 302 (Type 99E) although it was much updated from the unit which had powered the US bound Mangustas two decades earlier, fitted with electronic fuel injection, revised cylinder heads, camshafts, pistons valves and intake manifolds.  The underpinnings were also modernized with revised suspension geometry and the addition of ventilated and cross-drilled disc brakes, the four-piston Brembo calipers familiar from the appearance on the Ferrari F40 (1987-1992).

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Rosso Corsa (racing red) over Beige leather.

Based on the GT5S, beneath the skin was used a modified version of the original steel unibody, now featuring a tubular rear subframe for the engine, transaxle and suspension, the new design both lighter and more rigid.  The wheels were 17 inch Fondmetal cast in magnesium wheels (the front 9 inches wide, the rear 12) which replaced the various Campagnolo units used since 1971; originally they were shod with Michelin MXX tyres (235/45ZR/17 front, 335/35/ZR/17 rear).  Supplied from the US in the form fitted to the Ford Mustang (with a 9.0:1 compression ratio (CR) and rated at 225 hp at 4200 rpm), de Tomaso’s modifications included lifting the CR to 11.0 and the factory claimed 305 hp at 5800 rpm, a number more plausible than the 306 hp Shelby American allocated (somewhat arbitrarily) to the original 289 Cobras.  The 90 Si continued to use the 5-speed ZF transaxle but two (chassis # 9637 & 9639) were fitted with Getrag 6-speed units.

1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si in Rosso Corsa (racing red) over Beige leather.

With air-conditioning, electric windows, a CD player, wood veneer inserts on the dash, centre console and door panels and much leather, the 90 Si was the most lavishly appointed Pantera ever.  The mechanical modifications made it also the best behaved and most civilized but although the design brief had included making it suitable to be certified for sale in the US, none were exported there and the recession of the early 1990s saw demand for such machines collapse and sales never approached the optimistic expectation of 75 a year justified its conception and development.  Production ceased late in 1993.  One was even made in RHD (right-hand-drive) and in the UK the importer (Emilia Concessionaires) offered the option of twin turbochargers, advertising it as the Pantera 200 (an allusion to the claimed top speed of 200 mph (322 km/h) although it seems not certain that was ever verified.

1993 1991 De Tomaso Pantera 90 Si Targa by Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi in Stratos Blu (blue) over Beige Leather.  This is chassis #9637, one of two with a Getrag 6-speed transaxle.

Between 1993-1994, four of the 38 90Si Panteras (chassis #9636, 9637, 9638 & 9639) were converted to targas by Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi (1929-2012), a coach-building house with a decades-long association with Alejandro de Tomaso, the company having produced the 14 Longchamp spyders (and reputedly also the two convertible Maserati Kyalamis which were Longchamp-based).  The quality of Pavesi's work attracted the attention of some Longchamp owners who had their cars converted to spyders.   Founded in Milan by Ernesto Pavesi (1901-1974) in 1929, Carrozzeria Ernesto Pavesi (1929-2012) proved adaptable to a changing environment and survived the Great Depression, World War II (1939-1945) and the post-war decline of coach-building but succumbed finally to the effects of the GFC (global financial crisis, 2008-2012).  Pavesi completed the last of the four Pantera Targas in 1994, demand further hampered by it being some 50% more expensive than the coupé.