Pantera For Sale

This could end up as a long and pointless exchange! But for example, I put 7000 miles on my Porsche in almost 5 years, the car was never idle for more than 3 weeks running, if that was about to happen I would take it for a 20 mile drive, low mileage can equal regular use.
Above is a pic of the car mentioned, its exceptional condition is easy to see, although its non original restration wouldnt be to my taste, it is apparently popular in the US.

 

That could be the case with a 34 year old car with a few thousand miles. But, this car supposely has only 45 miles ! Even one short drive a year would add up to more miles than that.

 

The company was called Amerisport, run by Kirk Evans (and gearing up for a reentry into the Pantera parts market). He imported 48 GT5-S's I believe. George Stauffer also imported about that many. There are well over 100 GT5-S's in the US.

 

This is where figure dont make sense! According to Claudia Lodi of DeTomaso Automobili, the company produced sixty two GT5S cars of which 21 were right hand drive, most of those are in the Uk and my car is the only one in Ireland, there are also several in Sweden and Germany, the majority of Gt5S cars in the US are early cars converted to the later model type, I know of Amerisport but find it difficult to believe they imported 48 cars.
Also with reference to the earlier thread about the Nuevo pantera Si, the factory claims production of 37 cars between 1990 and 1994, yet both the UK DeTomaso Club and Emilia who are the official importers think the number is more likely about half that, if 37 is correct where are the cars?
Another note of interest, Dick Puxty of Emilia placed an order for 5 pantera Si in 1990 and the factory could not supply them!

 

Matt you're right Stauffer Classics LLC was the name of the company, thanks. I've been trying to think of his name but haven't seen him advertise for some time. He was advertising the Pantera heavily in the late 80's in the early DuPont's.

 

I think it may be because DeTomaso does not officially count the Amerisport cars in their paperwork as official DeTomaso cars, because of legal technicalities in classifying the cars as kit kars to get them into the US (via Canada no less), not sure. This is a common problem with DeTomaso. If you have a US Pantera and request info about your car, they'll have no record of it. Vignale built those, so they didn't keep records of it properly. DeTomaso has got some way screwing paperwork on their cars. I've got an email in to Kirk Evans asking him about all of this.

As for the Pantera Si, that I really couldn't guess at. They never made it the US, so I've never even got the privelage of seeing one. I can tell you this much, if there were an Si conversion easily available, I think you'd see a lot more people converting their cars to that look instead of the GT5.

And I completely disagree that most GT5-S's in the US are conversions from early cars. It's much, much more difficult to convert an early US Pantera to GT5-S than it is GT5. I don't even know of one that way, but know of several GT5 conversions.,

 

There are some early cars converted, very difficult I agree and you dont have to look closely to see, as the GT5S panels are very complicated, i was talking to a friend of mine in the US today who would be a respected Pantera specialist, Pat Mical, and he says there are about 60 GT5S cars in the US, so you must be correct about the Amerisport cars not being accounted for by the factory, there are only the same number in all Europe!!
As for a Pantera Si conversion, go to Las Vegas in 4 weeks time for the Pantera convention where you will see Pat Micals car, his own Si conversion with some serious interior and engine upgrades too. Ive seen pics of it in primer, he is painting the car as I write. Would like to hear your opinion. I would go but I am goint to Monaco for the grand prix at the same time.
steve

 

I've heard about Pat's conversion. He's been working on it a long time. It was supposed to be in Vegas last year. Hopefully this year it will be true. It will be the big talk if it is. I'm excited to see even pictures of it (I won't be able to make it Vegas). Killer design.

 

I have pictures of the car in primer, when it is painted he is sending me some more, i will post them no problem when I get them, it looks stunning, he is working flat out to get it finished, and planning on shipping it to Europe this year for our meeting at The Classic Le Mans in July
steve