Pantera Appreciation thread

Nice wheels and the white in a sea of red makes a cool pic.

 

The Pantera is one of the most beautiful exotics ever made when it's STOCK. Too many owners forget this and butcher these cars.

 

I so agree. There ARE such things as 'tasteful' mods (I'm clearing my name now!) but the 'tasteless' mods have - imho - kinda slopped up the market. Also, I believe the market is responding to the more stock appearing, the more valuable.

Mine has 'mostly' stealth mods, but is definitely stock looking to the uninitiated.

I'm driving mine today as a matter of fact. Just had Boss 351 intake (Blue Thunder brand) installed under stock looking Ford air cleaner and it runs fantastically. Never overheats (STOCK radiator, but Spal fans), blows cold air, windows go up and down, and sounds like a milllion bucks. It'll also corner as well as anything within 15 years of this car's era. I'm a fan.

 

Last weekend was F1 race week in Montreal so a few DeT owners went for a celebration dinner in Little Italy for a pre-race celebration dinner. Here is an interesting tidbit, DID YOU KNOW: The Pantera got it's wheel flares and rear wing spoiler BEFORE the Countach. Dallara who was part of the Pantera's design team would have introduced it on the Panteras GT4 redesign, then later as a consultant to lambo in the LP400S refresh.

 

DenisC, I remember this conversation at Casa Napoli!



What a great event and we look forward to joining you guys again.

LS

 

Your car is my favorite of all Panters types. Wonderful!

 

Picture of the 74 I used to have
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So what do you consider tasteless mods?

 

That would be tasteless mods on a Pantera..?? I've seen a few weird stuff but can't say it's very common.. I'd be interested to see what you consider tasteless and which has "slopped up the market". Thanks.

 

On my original post about 'taste', I was merely concurring with BullRun in effect that the closer to stock appearance, the closer to the original design ideal, the better. I wasn't referring to any specific car in this threaed.

With "taste" being wildly relative and in the eye of the beholder, I'll leave that as is, but will offer my opinion on what has slopped up the market -

The vintage Ferrari world lauds originality, authenticity. Shows, concours, auctions, historians nod similarly. Values follow same. So...

Fill in the blank of your favorite marque, and unless I'm forgetting one, they all follow that pattern. What was once 'vogue' in the modification arena, is a short-lived trend that ultimately has a negative impact on the above, the 'easiest' to see/count/measure is value.

Nitrous-breathing, fire expelling Corvettes are really cool until the nostalgic 'collector-minded' person sees them as passe. Same with Porsche 911s that got the 'turbo' treatment, the 'slope nose treatment', et al eventually slide into the 'too much for me' treatment and the market turns a blind eye. Examples too numerous to mention, but you get the point.

Panteras fell hard into the mod world. Everything from Pearlescent flip-flop paint, huge flares, and chromed out bling-a-thons that do more retinal damage than aestetic favors were nearly common.

So, do we have a 'street rodders dream' come true? A 'resto-mod' the way the factory should've build it? Or a mucked up original that should've gotten the owner sued for indecency?

Those questions, in my estimation, 'slopped up the market'. All my opinion of course.

 

Rossignolo came to my house with Peter ( The gourou of Orangina failure), Rossignolo was very nice and clever but I think that he receive bad advices from his advisers as theses one don t really understand the car market. The words of Peter Arnell was that "what is important is the dealers and they sell to their customers, when I think that the customers is more important and after they will buy from any dealers"
2 Stategies and 2 differents approach
What is your opinion ?

 

I'll back you up on all that. Anything but very minor tweaks ruin any car from a value standpoint. The guy who does the over the top mods and then asks to be paid for them never gets his money back. Bone stock well kept examples are WAY more valued, which I am looking for right now, and will pay a premium for it.

 

You and me both my friend. The original owner of my car hadn't changed a blooming thing except fluids and tires, all else kept stock, which is exactly what I wanted and was/is excruciatingly hard to find. I was in more of the minority 5 years ago when I got mine, but thoughts like yours are getting more common. I think you're right.

If it helps, I'd encourage you to look for a Pantera that has had 'sympathetic' upgrade/maintenance in its past. Anything for safety, reliability, ordinarily a 'good' thing and reversible if desired. For example - -

I've got a stock radiator (shocker!) but Edelbrock aluminum water pump, stainless coolant lines, double clamps, twin Spal fans with Bosch temp sensors that are 'staggered' in temp range. Of course, you can't see hardly any of that, but the car runs cool and that's the goal.

My Pantera is a super fun old car. I like to tell people it's 'mostly' stock. They can't believe it is 27 years old. Case in point - -

I pulled into the Porsche dealership shop the other day for a shot of R134a (my other car being in the shop there too). No kidding, half the mechanics from the shop, the clean up/detail lady, and 2 sales guys come in and are ALL OVER the car.

This, in a shop with a new Turbo, new GT3RS, one stall away. The Pantera has massive charm, is fun to own, tinker with, and look at.

 

Philippe, New car marketing is hard to understand. Managers and CEO's earn crazy salaries and do not understand the average middle class Joe, only their statistics. Their egos will not let them rework anyone's project.

The middle class has everyone fighting for their money. 'Nouveau Riche' have more disposable income and don't really care about heritage or provenance, Ask a Veyron owner the history of Bugatti or who Veyron is, thy don't know. Corporations can sell 1 million widgets with 1 dollar (or euro) profit or sell 1000 thousand with 100,000 profit. On a complicated device the lower number is better and if the marketing creates the correct demand, the cars sell themselves. Unfortunatelly we can't afford the higher end cars, but the marketers will spin the 'heritage, or 'vintage' feel to sell more. The hardest thing for the manufacturer is to sell their production (PUSH), creating the demand makes it easier when customer want to buy your product. (PULL)

Think of it like your books, on your next publication, if you used heavier paper, more glossy coloured pages and a large format and sold the books for 500 euros, the next one may be very nice and you will need to sell fewer books to make the same profit. Few people would buy let's say one of your older books if you, add a few chapters, and 25 pictures. or even just for arguments sake what if you took the old the old out of print Ferrari book by Klemantaski, reworked it added pictures and filled-in comment here or there. People would never say it's your book, they would say it's Klemantaski's book. (IMOHO, who cares if you get to keep the profits). Again simple logic takes over and a new product is easier to sell.

A Mustang or Corvette or truck book will have a bigger demand than a Cizetta book. Hey maybe a tell-all book on the Fiat 500 for $25 dollars would sell more (just kidding)


my 2cents, hope not to offend you.

 

Not trying to rain on your parade, but the press killed the original Pantera from day one. Serious quality issues with the early cars. Along with the single most reason I hear why these cars are not respected ...lack of pedigree. The Pantera is a known morphodite put together with a single purpose in mind--make money. The lack of factory records for FORD era cars also contribute to the mutt factor.

I realize a modified car will never be accepted iin the Ferrari concours world. For the majority of Pantera owners that's not a problem. Most don't own the car for their investment value. Instead, most admire and celebrate the manner in which other owners and vendors have taken a flawed product, modified it, and finished what the factory was never able to do. They are the reason Pantera ownership thrives today.

At a recent car show I saw tons of Panteras. Each one unique. Everything under the sun. Just like their owners. Although my 5-S is stock...I celebrate the individualness of these cars. This is what makes Pantera ownership so different from owning a Ferrari.. This.. is what's so cool about these cars. Just my opinion too.

 

I agree with Pantera GT5S. When I went looking for a Pantera I knew I wanted to be able to customize it to suit my personal taste. If that means I hurt the car... So be it. I didn't buy the car to save it for the next guy. Having said that, I do appreciate originality and was not going to cut into an original example. I looked until I found a good platform. My car was formerly used as a track car. It had been sitting retired for many years. It had already been modified with Group 4 flares (formerly fiberglass, now steel) and so forth. I did a complete restoration on the car and added every update possible to the suspension, cooling system, brakes, electrical system, chassis and transaxle. I made the swap to a stroked Windsor as well. My car is completely reliable and won't go past 185 degrees sitting in traffic in the middle of July.
The car is sorted, reliable, quite a thrill at 2862 lbs and 587 bhp and has placed no lower than first place at every professionally judged show it has been in so far. If it is less of a car to some then ok, we all have opinions. I, for one, couldn't be happier and the crowd response is always very positive!
Just my $.02
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what variant of Pantera is that with front grills on it's hood ?

that's my favorite

 

the grills are a Hall Pantera add-on aftermarket option, that were later a GT5 factory item.

Hall"s is (was) to Pantera -DeTomaso what Wolf was to Countach -Lambo

 

A few photos from a very nice local concours, The Milwaukee Masterpiece. They had this blue all original including tires Pantera. A total of 10 Pantera's on display.


Tom Tanner/Ferrari Expo 2012-Chicago March 2012
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I see..... So there's only one car with those grills ?

I love that look
any pics or links of that car ?

 

Martin,

Pantera's are often 'hotrodded' Hall Pantera made many modifications and enhancements to a batch of cars and also sells or intalls these items for owners wanting the mods. The grills happen to be one of those items. So many many cars have them but only the GT5 and the GT5s have them in stock form.

 

Pistonheads recently published a feature on my Pantera on their website.
Link below, the pictures for it were shot by a friend.
http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=24235

 

nice article steve!

 

if im not mistaken, i believe the article is inaccurate about the "upside down" ZF. it was the goose that had an inverted transaxle

good read never the less.

Thanks for posting

 

Loving that candy apple red one! I'll have to check out this show next year.