Luca Mazzanti’s passion for car did not have a real beginning, it was born with him, in Pistoia, in the night of the first day of February 1974, and in his first years, lived in the countryside, adorned by the olive trees, between Pistoia and Vinci.
During the years of primary school, Luca started his first trials in modifying the toy cars with which he was playing with friends. “Disassembling and Modifying” were the key words of that game, were fantasy and reality were still going side by side.
Luca’s father moves the workshop and his activity to Pontedera.
The passion for cars is now consolidated, and the advent of the “Group B”, capable of making adults and children of those years daydreaming with those mechanical masterpieces, strengthens Luca’s dream. The rally stages on gravel were spectacular for Luca that never misses a stage of the world rally championship of “San Remo” as well as of the gravel stages in Tuscany, the land from where he is coming.
Luca moves with his family to Pondera. During summer holidays, he starts visiting and performing small jobs in the body shop, his favorite location to spend his free time.
Working in a body shop was not what Luca’s father dreamed for him; thus a fight starts between a father that wants different opportunities for his son than his own ones, and a young guy that sees working in a body shop a compulsory step to pursue in order to get the skills and the ability for the bigger project he dreams about.
Luca Mazzanti is a steadfast person, that has been always interested in engines and competitions.
At the end of 1992, Luca comes back to work mainly in his father’s body shop, however diversifying the activity; in fact, he starts to specialize on racing cars, especially rally ones.
Luca has to attend the compulsory community service and in during this period away from the body shop activity, he can just find the time to finish the restoration of his Moretti 850.
In the two years following the community service, Luca goes back working in the body shop. At the end of 1996, when he is mature and ready for succeeding the father in the leadership of the body shop, the father sells the activity. This is a serious blow for Luca, that sees the place where a child was playing with cars and where a determined guy started working in order to concretize his dream, disappearing.
In 1998, Luca wants to open his own activity that has to fully express his philosophy, but when he seems to have found the solid basis on which start, Faralli’s restoration company looks for him to have him back in their company.
Luca has had competitions always in his mind; thus he participates to many hill-climb races, with several excellent results, such as two first places in the Saline-Volterra 2000 and in the Consuma Cup 2004.
The biggest satisfaction was that all the cars he was racing with, were completely restored, realized and made competitive by him.
The idea of founding a new car manufacturer, while realizing a car, is mature in Luca Mazzanti’s mind.
Antas is invited to participate at the 80th anniversary of the Rome Gran Prix, where it receives an award for the fabulous design by the ACI Rome.
People start to get to know the brand, and a second project gets shape.
In march, the second project of the company is presented, but the coincidence with the beginning of the global crisis damages the luxury industry. To overcome the situation, this project is developed further within the company, waiting for positive signals to officially present the car. The restoration department is still important and the size of both divisions needs a separation to proceed at best.
At the beginning of the year, there is another important change; Luca starts to project a new mid-engine vehicle, using consistent styles and concepts already applied to the previous models of the brand, but here even more updated and developed. By the end of this year, the design of this third project is ready, but the restoration activity is too demanding to going on with both. The two activities are divided, still remaining located in the same company.
The new year starts with the exhibition of the rendering of Evantra.
This is a new chapter for Luca Mazzanti and immediately this new project is positively welcome by the public.
In April, Mazzanti Automobili comes back, as usual, to the Top Marques for the World Premiere of its latest model, the Evantra, with the first exemplar of the production series. Luca Mazzanti chooses to come back to this exhibition as a symbol: in fact, Top Marques marked positively the debut of the brand.
