De Tomaso, once famous for the 1970s Pantera, and sometime owner of Maserati, Moto Guzzi and Innocenti, has gone bust again.Alejandro de Tomaso seemed to thrive in inverse proportion to the profits of his companies – there always seemed to be another Italian government bailout around the corner. One of his 1990s designs, the Bigua even ended up as the pointless MG SV pseudo-supercar that MG Rover directors thought was so much more fun to play with than the hard work of running a car company.

Its most recent attempt to reinvent itself was the luxury SUV Deauville (itself a name used on a De Tomaso would-be rival to the Jaguar XJ12 in the 1970s). The Deauville was a typical recent de Tomaso: ugly, derivative and offering nothing that bigger names did not do better.

The original Pantera was a design classic and a good business idea: a mid-engined Italian supercar powered by a nice simple Ford V8 – a sort of successor to the road-going versions of the iconic Ford GT40. After a great start, whereby it was marketed by Ford in America in big numbers, it faded away once owners discovered its chronic propensity to rust.

However, another rescue seems unlikely. The current Italian government has bigger problems than throwing yet another lifeline to a company that had a great future ahead of it – in 1970.