1971 Detomaso Pantera THPNLY1661

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Pantera, Ford's Lincoln-Mercury dealers sold the Pantera from their showrooms during the 1971-74 model years. The car was built at the Detomaso factory in Mondena, Italy and was then shipped to the USA for distribution to the dealers. I visited the Detomaso factory in early 1984 to see my newly ordered GT5S, but I never got to see it... It was being painted at Vignale.

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. A Pantera registry is online here.

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 right hand drive red 1972 model (THPNMT05084) 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. I can’t find any pictures of it.
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!

I bought #1661 after ordering a 'gray market' GT5S which never appeared. The story of the GT5S goes hand in hand with the white car mentioned above. Once again, a painful and expensive experience.

#1661 was originally the factory lime green color as far as I can tell, but one of the previous owners had re-painted it to a rather 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. The Hall 'Big Bore' headers and exhaust were not.

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 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 at Pantera Performance Center 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 in Aurora 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).

The brakes were upgraded to Wilwood SuperLite racing brakes. Recaro seats were added to the interior

Simpson racing harnesses were installed in place of the stock seat belts, and a rear spoiler and louvers were added.

1661 was featured in Pantera Owners Club of America Spring 2000 Quarterly as the 'car of the quarter'. You can read the article here.

I enjoy driving the car on the track and have taken it to several events during my vacations in the past. In 1987, I attended the Shelby Owners Club of America national meet in Great Bend, Kansas where I had some fun with a twin turbo 308 Ferrari.

Here are some QuickTime movies of two drag races I had with the Ferrari.
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 sound and image suffer due to that. Sound is included since I feel you miss one of the best parts of owning a Pantera!

This is a 320x240 movie with sound.

• Ferrari 308 drag race Run #1 (5.9MB, July 1987)
I beat him bad and he insisted he didn't get off the line well enough...
Did I want to go again? Of course!

This is a smaller 160x120 movie with sound.

• Ferrari 308 drag race Run #2 (3.9MB, July 1987)
Beat him just as bad this time.

The history of my Pantera as I know it:

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
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 - Purchased 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" Campagnolo 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 my brother and I 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. Ralph did not
want to sell this car… He’d bought it for his oldest son's graduation present and didn't
want to sell due to sentimental reasons!).

Bought some 10" Campagnolo wheels 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...

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" Campagnolo.

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)

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 GTS we had at the time 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 was 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 Pantera Club and SCPOCA 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 a 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. As another Pantera owner from Dallas says…
'With slicks, you are Superman!'

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 Yokohama tires, 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 two 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 finally back at Pantera Performance Center. The 20+ year old paint job needs fixing and other
work is planned.

In Brunei, Sunny is now rebuilding his engine with parts I've hand carried to Brunei.

2006 Not much to report... 1661 is still 'pending'.

2007 Received my GT40, so my focus has been on it. Still waiting on 1661 to be finished.

2008 1661 has been stripped to bare metal. Engine has been rebuilt and dyno'd.
377ci stroker again, but this time with hydraulic roller lifters. 470HP, 450TQ (with a carb)
Hoping to get the car back in 2009

Sunny is has repainted his car and is still in process of rebuilding his engine.

2009 Ah, yes.... the saga continues. The car is finally painted now and being put back together.
I have not driven my Pantera now since March 2002. Shameful, eh?

2009 The 19th of December to be exact. I picked my Pantera up and trailered it home.
Not finished yet, unfortunately… but driveable.
Engine details and some new pictures.

2010 October… Took the GT40 and the Pantera to TWS. My daughter, Heidi, drove the Pantera. It ran OK until towards the end…
It started blowing oil bad. Ring lands broken due to having the timing too far advanced… my fault entirely.
I was concentrating on GT40 fuel problems.
A tough weekend.
Car looked pretty good from a distance though!


2011 Rebuilding the Pantera engine.

2012 March - Finally got the engine back in the car and attended the Space City Panteras Pig Roast.
On the way home, I lost oil pressure. After pulling the pan, the front main bearing had spun with 400 miles on the engine.
The crankshaft had cracked between the #1 and #2 journals. Sigh….

The Pantera is running again!

Keith Craft supplied a Ford Motorsports iron racing block and installed my iron 4V Cleveland heads and EFI.
Engine dyno'd at 544HP. Here's the dyno sheet from Keith Craft.
The cam spec sheet is here.




2013 Getting the bodywork done again and painted.

2014 Car is back and looking much better.

2015 Cleaned up and went to the Fun Rally with my son Dylan his car.
Added the ‘Vader’ window regulators. Wow! Highly recommended!
New stainless steel brake lines in process.
Brake lines finished, bled and good to go! But… I left out the line lock I’ve been using for years. So…
Ordered a new electric parking brake system from SACC. We’ll see how it goes!

2016 Installed the new electric parking brake system. Works great! Pictures here.

2017 No problems, just driving it!

2018 Got a new set of tires…. It's never easy… Tires sizes and types seem to come and go.
Ended up with BF Goodrich Rival S front and rear. 275/35 18 front; 335/30 18 rear.
Forgot how much fun the car is with decent tires!

2020 New brakes!