Alejandro de Tomaso

Alejandro de Tomaso (10 July 1928 to 21 May 2003) was an Argentine racing driver and businessman, whose name is sometimes written in the Italian form Alessandro. Implicated in 1955 in a plot to overthrow Argentine president Juan Peron, he fled to Italy and settled in Modena. He drove in two Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, beginning with the 1957 Argentine Grand Prix, and in 1959 founded the sports car company De Tomaso Automobili, which built racing cars, a Formula One car for Frank Williams in 1970 and, from 1963, sports cars such as the Vallelunga, Mangusta, Pantera and Guara. In the 1960s and 1970s the company acquired Ghia and Vignale, Benelli, Moto Guzzi, Innocenti and in 1975 Maserati; Ghia was sold to Ford in 1973 and Innocenti and Maserati to Fiat in 1993. He suffered a stroke in 1993 and retired, succeeded by his son Santiago.