1971 DeTomaso Pantera THPNLY01661
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DeTomaso continued building the cars from 1974 on, but was unable to export them to the USA or Canada due to the agreement with Ford when he bought back the rights to the car. Some later year cars have made it to the USA by owners importing the cars themselves. DeTomaso, as a company, is now defunct. There are less than 3,000 Panteras left in the USA according to some sources. Others say there are more. In any case, there are still examples of cars 'appearing' in barns and showing up at auctions and estate sales to this day.
The engine is a Ford 5.7 liter (351 ci) 'Cleveland' V8, which was also found in some early hi-performance 70's Mustangs and Torinos. The transaxle is a five speed manual from ZF in Germany.
This is the third Pantera I've owned. The first one was a red 1972 model (license number 238HOT) that I owned while in the Shetlands and Aberdeen, Scotland when I was working in the UK the second time around.
In addition, I had a second car (THPNMY04682) which was white and I used it for spare parts. Both of these were right-hand drive versions which I found in London. I sold 238HOT when I left Aberdeen for Indonesia.
The white one? A long, painful and expensive story that is best told over a beer! The last information I have regarding this car is that it is being re-born in Ohio.
I bought #1661 after ordering a 'gray market' GT5S which never appeared. The story of the GT5S goes hand in hand with the white, left hand drive car mentioned above.
#1661 was originally the factory lime green color, but one of the previous owners has re-painted it to a rather
ugly dark maroon color which had been touched up in places and was showing its age. The car also had 14" wire
wheels and F70x14 tires! As purchased and after putting stock 7" and 8" Campagnolo wheels on it, the car looked
almost original.
When I first saw 1661, it was located in a storage building in Larned, Kansas and owned by the
local Ford dealer, Ralph Baird, who said he drove it once a year during the local Larned Fourth of July parade.
I bought it from Ralph, drove it for a couple of years when I was home on vacation and worked on restoring it myself. I put the 8" wheels on the front, bought some 10" Campagnolos for the back and started fixing various items that needed it after having been stored for so long. I soon realized that I would be unlikely to finish it during this century at the rate I was going.
Since I was working overseas at the time, I discussed having it rebuilt with Dennis Quella and after driving it out to Denver and letting Dennis have a look, we agreed that I'd leave it with him. So the car spent one year just outside Denver, Colorado at Pantera Performance Center where it was completely stripped and put back together with my requested modifications. The car was repainted to silver and black. The engine was modified with solid lifters and a dual plane intake manifold along with the addition of a better cooling system (large sucker fans and an aluminum 'layforward' radiator), Wilwood SuperLite racing brakes, Recaro seats (interior), racing harnesses in place of seat belts, a rear spoiler and louvers, etc.
1661 was featured in Pantera Owners Club of America Spring 2000 Quarterly as the 'car of the quarter'. You can read the article here.
The quality of the following clips is not the greatest.... I tried to reduce the size so they wouldn't take so long to download and the image suffers due to that. Sound is included since I feel you miss one of the best parts of owning a Pantera! ;-)
1971 - Purchased new by the 'area Ford sales representative' in Wichita, Kansas.
The car was a dark purple/maroon color at the time I bought it, but from
the color of the base paint when it was stripped, the car was originally
a light lime green...... 1971 being the only year they offered that color from the factory.
1972 - According to the Ralph Baird, the original owner did all of the standard
recommended Ford recommended TSB updates and modifications while he owned it. There
was evidence of some of these on the car.
1976? Original owner sold the car to Ralph Baird in Larned, Kansas.
1984 - Puchased by me from Ralph Baird, the owner of Baird Motor Company (Ford dealer) in
Larned, Kansas. The car had 14" wire wheels with F70x14 Goodyears on it!
I replaced the wire wheels with 7" and 8" Campagnolos and some
Michelins from the right hand drive white car. Sold the wire wheels to my brother.
I also did a lot of work replacing worn out bushings, rotten wiring, etc.
There was minimal rust found in the car.
Anecdote:
I found out about the car from my brother's wife's sister's husband? and drove
to Larned to see it. Ralph had an entire barn full of various vintage cars.
Among them, an old Lincoln convertible with the 'suicide' doors, a 1972 Mustang
convertible with 72 miles on the odometer, and another yellow Pantera (which
he'd bought for his oldest son's graduation present and didn't want to sell due
to sentimental reasons!).
Bought some 10" Campagnolos for the back and put the 8" on the front with Pirelli
P7 tires.
1985 - Took the car to Pantera Performance Center in Aurora, Colorado where they
stripped it down completely and started restoring it. They had it for a year
while I was back overseas in Scotland...... If you want someone to work on
your car who can be trusted, Dennis Quella is the man to call, in my opinion!
1986 - Car was completed. Tires and wheels at the time were the same 225-50/15 and 285-50/15
Pirelli P7s on 8" and 10" Campagnolos.
1987 - Had the tires and wheels changed to 285-40/15 and 345-35/15 Pirelli P7s and
10" and 12" Etoile wheels that you see in most of the pictures. It was too
easy to break the smaller tires loose under acceleration!
Shelby Owners of America Club Meeting, Great Bend, Kansas
Car show - First in class
Ran a best time of 13.64 sec/101.6 mph on the drag strip. The engine
had hydraulic lifters at the time and 6,000 rpm was the maximum it would rev.
(this is where the Ferrari drag race took place as mentioned above)
1988 - Colorado Exotic Car Association's (CECA) Aspen Open in Aspen, Colorado
Car show - Fourth place overall in the car show
(against other Panteras, Lamborghinis, Ferrari's, Cobras, etc.)
Second place in the Pantera class.
I ran on the track (Woody Creek Raceway) for the first time during this event.
1989 - Modified the engine; (solid lifter cam, bigger 750 Holley 4bbl)
It would rev to 7,000 'safely' and went to 7,500 a few times.....
1990 - Colorado Exotic Car Association's (CECA) Aspen Open in Aspen, Colorado
Car show - First place overall in the car show (against other Panteras,
Lamborghinis, Ferrari's, Cobras, etc.)
I also won the long distance award for the event after flying from
Indonesia to attend. I came in 6th fastest in the road course event. 5 other
Panteras were faster!
1995 - Fun Ford Weekend, Baytown, Texas
Car show - First in class award
- Lone Star Porsche Club High Speed Driver Education Course held at
Texas World Speedway just outside College
Station, Texas on November 11.
My first time on a long track where I could get out of third gear.
Overdid it a little bit a couple of times and got my first taste of pushing hard and losing it.
I left the track twice... one spin consisted of two and a half loops out into the grass at
95 mph. Pure stupidity on my part... Cold tires, cold track and too much throttle.
I guarantee this will bruise your ego! Of course, the desire for more power
and speed now exists....
1996 - Lakewood Yacht Club's 'Classic Wheels and Wooden Keels' car and wooden
boat show. No awards for me this time..... The Mangusta in my class was
just too nice!!
1997 - Lakewood Yacht Club's 'Classic Wheels and Wooden Keels' car and wooden
boat show. Another nice show!
The local Space City Pantera Club members headed out to NASA for a nice
photo shoot. Check out some pictures of that event.
Took the Pantera and Longchamp to the Dallas Italian Concours show at the famous "Southfork Ranch".
Some extremely nice cars were on show there!
1998 - As of April 11, the engine has been rebuilt and installed. Now 377 c.i.
Attended the Lakewood Yacht Club's 'Classic Wheels and Wooden Keels' car
show May 2-3 with 3 other Panteras, the Longchamp and a Mangusta.
The Brenham trip that the club did was great!
Attended the 1998 Pocono event - "La Belle de Macchine d'Italia"
Pictures and story of the event are here.
Thanks to John Taphorn for loaning his trailer and Explorer.
Attended the First Annual Space City Panteras' Texas World Speedway track event. We
had 9 Panteras on the track! Cars from Denver, Chicago, California!
Read all about the event here 1999 - I attended the SCAT (Shelby Club in Texas) track event at the new Texas Motorsports Ranch with the Dallas club and SCP members! Nice facility and one heck of a track! You can have a look at the course on their website.
2000 - #1661 was the 'Detomaso of the Quarter' in the 2000 No. 1 Pantera Owner's
Club of America Profiles'
Installed a custom individual runner EFI on the engine just in time for
the 2nd Space City Panteras'track event Attended the BMW track event at Heartland in July with my brother, Dana, and his '97 Mustang Cobra. Dana then then sold his Cobra to my son, Dylan, and bought an BMW M3. October was another SCAT event at the Motorsports Ranch, but we pretty much got rained out... 2001 February 24-25 Space City Panteras TWS #3! A blast! Pictures and info are here June 30 - July 2 John Taphorn and I did Pocono again along with David Bell, my wife, daughter and sister in law. Tried out my new Avon slicks. See picture at the top of the page! They stick. October SCAT event was a blast. Good weather this time around. Two solid days of running hard and having fun. Had some brake problems (boiled DOT3 brake fluid?). After selling my stock of AVS Yokohamas, I finally went with new wheels and tires.
Kinesis K58 - 10"x18" front, 12"x18" rear
Tires are Michelin Pilot Sports with 285-30 fronts and 335-30 rears.
2002 March 16-17, attended Space City Panteras' Fourth Annual track event Unfortunately, I broke a piston ring on the next to the last session on Sunday and had to call it a day. Engine tear down afterwards showed no major problems; just leaned out and
a couple of burnt pistons.
June - Took up a job offer in Brunei! Sold the Longchamp, Pantera is in pieces at Gray Gregory's ranch
waiting on a trip to PPC to be rebuilt while I'm overseas again.
A future Pantera racecar project is in its infancy also. More later!
2004 Finally met up with the Pantera owner in Brunei! Sunny Chua owns a '72 which has been converted
from left hand drive to right hand drive. Some pictures and story here.
2005 1661 is back at Pantera Performance Center. The 20+ year old paint job needs fixing and other
work is planned.
Sunny is now rebuilding his engine with parts I've hand carried to Brunei.
Other links to Panteras and Pantera info can be found at:
Pantera Parts Inc.
Detomaso Mailing List
DeTomaso Mailing List Archive
Chuck Melton's Pantera
Other Pantera Pictures