Somewhere along the way, the automotive world agreed that the V12 was finished. Too big. Too loud. Too inconvenient for a future ruled by turbochargers, batteries and PowerPoint presentations about sustainability.
De Tomaso Automobili has responded to this narrative in the most refreshing way imaginable: by ignoring it completely and building something outrageous.
Very outrageous.
At the heart of the new De Tomaso P900 is a bespoke, naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V12 that revs to a completely unreasonable 12,300 rpm. That’s higher than the Cosworth V12 in Gordon Murray’s T.50 — previously considered the absolute limit of what sanity and metallurgy would allow. Power output is 900 horsepower. There are no turbos, no hybrid systems, no batteries smoothing things over. Just twelve cylinders doing exactly what they were born to do.
It took four years to develop, which makes sense when you learn that the engine weighs just 220 kilograms. De Tomaso claims it’s the lightest V12 ever built, and one look at it suggests they’re not exaggerating. The exhaust headers twist together like a piece of mechanical sculpture, wrapped in heat shielding and paired with an intricate carbon-fibre intake system. It looks expensive, complicated and faintly malevolent — which is precisely the point.
Now for the clever part. The engine is designed to run exclusively on synthetic fuel, allowing De Tomaso to describe it — with a straight face — as a carbon-neutral V12. It’s a clever bit of engineering judo: preserving the soul of a naturally aspirated engine while side-stepping the usual environmental firing squad.
All of this lunacy is mounted into a track-only chassis weighing just 900 kg dry. The result is a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio, placing the P900 in the same rarefied territory as the Koenigsegg One:1. Power goes to the rear wheels only, through an Xtrac sequential gearbox, because anything else would dilute the experience.
Only 18 examples will ever be built, each costing north of $3 million. But the car is just the beginning. Owners are enrolled into De Tomaso Competizione, a factory-run programme offering professional driver coaching, curated track events, full mechanical support, logistics, and even storage and maintenance at De Tomaso’s Nürburgring facilities. It’s motorsport without the inconvenience of competition — or losing.
The P900’s design comes from Jowyn Wong, the man behind the Apollo IE and the De Tomaso P72. The elegant curves of the P72 are still present, but sharpened dramatically for aerodynamic efficiency. It looks like an endurance racer that’s been to finishing school. And yes, despite being a no-nonsense track weapon, it still has cup holders. Because some traditions are sacred.
Behind the project is owner and CEO Norman Choi, who discovered that founder Alejandro de Tomaso had once planned to build an in-house V12 that never came to life. The P900 is, in many ways, the completion of that unfinished ambition — realised today with more carbon fibre, more revs and considerably more courage.
At a time when much of the industry is downsizing, hybridising and explaining why engines should be quieter and smaller, De Tomaso has chosen a different path. Louder. Lighter. More emotional.
The V12 isn’t dead. It’s just become rarer, angrier — and vastly more interesting. Frankly, we should be grateful someone still has the nerve to build one.