Mastretta Cars is a Mexican car maker and design studio established by

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in adva ...

er Daniel Mastretta in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

in 1987. During the 1990s, Mastretta developed a small number of

kit car Kit may refer to: People and fictional characters * Kit (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Kit (surname), a list of people Places * Kit, Iran, a village in Mazandaran Province * Kit Hill ...

s under the brands Tecnoidea and Unediseño, but the 2010 MXT is the first developed vehicle to reach international commercial availability. Mastretta is often incorrectly claimed to be the first Mexican mass-production car maker, but other Mexican automotive companies Dina, Ramirez Industrial Group,

VAM VAM may refer to: Science and technology * Vinyl acetate monomer, a chemical component used in plastics manufacture * VAM (bicycling), a measure of rate of climb in bicycle racing * Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos, a Mexican automaker * VAM, a tr ...

and D.M. Nacional had developed their own vehicles since the 1950s to a small national scale.

History

During the 1990s, Mastretta focused on microbus (Mexico City metropolitan minibuses) body

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of a manufactured object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

design and engineering, as well as that of urban buses. This experience led to the construction of their first kit-car in 1995, the Unediseño-Mastretta MXA. The Unediseño Mastretta was built on the chassis of the

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle, officially the Volkswagen Type 1, is a small family car produced by the German company Volkswagen from 1938 to 2003. One of the most iconic cars in automotive history, the Beetle is noted for its distinctive shape. Its pr ...

, called the "Vocho" in Mexico, and used the

Volkswagen air-cooled engine The Volkswagen air-cooled engine is an Air-cooled engine, air-cooled, gasoline-fuelled, boxer engine with four horizontally opposed cast-iron cylinder (engine), cylinders, cast aluminum alloy cylinder heads and pistons, magnesium-alloy crankca ...

as power source. For this prototype, the engine delivered and reached a top speed of . A few hand-made units were exported to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and the USA, where the kit-car marketing was attractive for many collectors at the time; those that remain in Mexico are 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 Unediseño Mastretta.

Mastretta MXT

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.

Logo

Mastretta's logo features a non-sharped shield with the colours of the

Mexican flag The national flag, national flag of Mexico () is a vertical Tricolour (flag), tricolor of green, white, and red with Coat of arms of Mexico, the national coat of arms charge (heraldry), charged in the center of the white stripe. While the meani ...

(green, white and red) and a diagonal checkered black and white racing stripe, representing the Mexican coat of arms. The name "Mastretta" appears across the top.

References

External links

Mastretta Cars
Manufacturer website {{Automotive industry Car brands Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1987 Kit car manufacturers Bus manufacturers of Mexico Manufacturing companies based in Mexico City Mexican brands Car manufacturers of Mexico Mexican companies established in 1987 Sports car manufacturers

History

Mastretta MXT

Logo

See also

References

External links