Dangel Mangouste: for the love of obscurity

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As you will know by now we have a serious soft spot for anything obscure on four wheels here at PostWarClassic. So when we wrote about the Montee Ballon d’Alsace about a month ago and stumbled upon some photographs (above and below) of an obscure French roadster on the organizer’s website – photos of it in both the original as well as in the revived versions of the event - we wanted to know all about it.

That car is the Dangel Mangouste, made by henry Dangel of Mulhouse in the heart of the French Alsace. Now, we have to be honest and shall tell you that we did know of Dangel’s work, but only as the 4x4 conversions of 1970s and 1980s Peugeots and Citroens. But there was more. Quite a lot more.

Inspired by the creatures of Franco Sbarro, which would become a close friend, he started work on a car of his own in the mid-1960s. Dangel’s Mangouste came on the market in the same year as it’s Italian namesake, the DeTomaso Mangusta: 1967 but this was ‘essentially a French equivalent of the Lotus 23, made usable for the road too”. Powered by a 1300 Renault Gordini engine, it must have been seriously fun to drive one at under 460kgs. You can find a very comprehensive and well-written story about Dangel – in English - here.

(Words editor, pictures Montee Ballon d'Alsace)

 

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