Mastretta
 | |
| Type | private |
|---|---|
| Industry |
Design Automotive |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Mexico City, Mexico |
| Key people |
Daniel Mastretta Carlos Mastretta |
| Products |
Various designs Automobiles Kit-cars Buses and trucks |
| Subsidiaries |
Tecnoidea Unidiseño (1998) |
| Website | Mastretta Cars |
Mastrettadesign Tecnoidea SA de CV (or simply Mastretta) is a Mexican car maker and design studio established by Mexican industrial designer Daniel Mastretta in Mexico City in 1987. Mastretta under Tecnoidea and Unidiseño brands has previously developed a small number of kit cars, but the 2010 MXT is the first fully self developed car. It often incorrectly claimed to be the first ever mass-production sports car completely designed and produced by Mexican engineers and designers, but Mexican automotive companies Dina, Ramirez Industrial Group and VAM had developed cars indigenously decades before. It is only the third Mexican high performance sports car ever; it was designed as a market competitor for the Lotus Elise.
History
During the 1990s, Mastretta focused on microbus (Mexico City metropolitan minibuses) body chassis and engineering as well as urban buses. This experience led to the construction of their first kit-car in 1998, the Unidiseño Mastretta MXA. The Unidiseño Mastretta was built on a Volkswagen Sedán (Mexican VW Type 1) chassis and platform, using the VW boxer flat-four engine. In the prototype, the engine developed 44 bhp (33 kW; 45 PS) and reached a top speed of 127 km/h (79 mph).
The few hand-made units were exported to Germany, Japan and the United States, where the kit-car marketing was attractive for many collectors at the time. It is believed that two remain in Mexico, both owned by Mastretta. A variation of the same model, the MXB, was also built. It featured different headlights and other minor modifications.
Automóvil Panamericano car magazine's February 1998 annual edition of Modelos (Models, a special catalogue with information about every commercial model on Earth and since that year, a few pages dedicated to kit-car makers) featured a paragraph on the Unidiseño Mastretta. Nine years later, in their #149 issue for June 2007, the magazine announced the production of Mastretta's third car, the MXT, now produced in Mexico City by Daniel Mastretta's company Tecnoidea.
With a proposed production of 200 MXT autos per year, Mastretta's Tecnoidea calls itself Mexico's only automaker. Although the engine, transmission, and other components are U.S.-made, the MXT's chassis, body, interior, and numerous other components are fabricated onsite in Mexico.[1]
Mastretta MXT
Logo
Mastretta's logo features a non-sharped shield with the Mexican flag colours green, white and red and a diagonal black and white race strip in representation of the Mexican coat of arms, and to avoid confusion with the Italian flag, "Mastretta" appears on the top.
See also
- DINA S.A.
- Cars in Mexico
References
- ↑ Garrett, Jerry (November 18, 2011). "Mastretta MXT: A Mexican Lotus?". The New York Times.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mastretta. |
- Mastretta Cars Manufacturer website
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