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The Guarà was the final production car built under the De Tomaso name, a fitting crescendo for a brand that had always blurred the line between road and race. Its body lines penned by Carlo Gaino of Synthesis Design, the Guarà carried forward much of the technology and spirit of the Maserati Barchetta race car on which it was based. Its aluminum tubular backbone chassis (a De Tomaso trademark dating back to the Vallelunga), inboard Formula 1-style suspension, and composite bodywork kept weight to around 1,200 kilograms (2,640 pounds), while its low and angular form gave it a distinctive Modenese character all its own.
Presented at the 1993 Geneva Motor Show, the Guarà was initially offered as a coupé before later spawning the roadster and barchetta variants. The design combined Gaino’s sculptural form with race-bred engineering input from Formula 1 chassis designer Enrique Scalabroni. Fiberglass, Kevlar, and other composites formed the body shell over the aluminum backbone, while independent double-wishbone suspension with pushrod-actuated dampers gave the car its famously agile—if sometimes “nervous”—handling. Brembo brakes derived from the Ferrari F40 were fitted, unassisted for purer pedal feel, and steering remained un-boosted to save weight. The interior, trimmed entirely in leather with BF-Turin-style sport seats, drew heavily on BMW switchgear and offered manual adjustment of steering and pedals to suit the driver.
Just 38 Guarà coupés were produced, and only 8 were fitted with BMW’s bulletproof 4.0-liter M60 V8—a lighter and far more desirable engine compared to the Ford units that powered later examples. Early BMW-engined cars produced around 283 PS (279 hp) and were paired with a six-speed Getrag manual featuring a gated shifter and 7,000-rpm redline, good for a claimed 0–60 mph in 5.0 seconds and a 170 mph top speed.
This example is chassis no. 14, finished in its untouched silver exterior paint over blue leather in January of 1996. It was first registered in Belgium in 2001, where it remained in long-term private ownership showing just over 2,600 kilometers from new. In 2021, it surfaced for sale in Belgium before being imported to the United States, where it was acquired from a New Jersey dealer by its current owner in 2022.
Today, this Guarà stands as a remarkable survivor—one of the very few BMW-engined examples retaining its factory paint, interior, and impossibly low mileage of 2,600 km (1,600 mi). It embodies the closing chapter of De Tomaso’s independent production—as the F40 was the last Ferrari produced with oversight from Il Commendatore, so was the Guarà for Alejandro De Tomaso.