1971 De Tomaso Pantera - Jay Leno's Garage

welcome another episode of Jay Leno's Garage today we are going to talk about one of the most misunderstood and I think underrated supercars of the 1970s. This is my

1971

de Tomaso Pantera. It is the first, I believe, in a mid-engined car produced by An American manufacturer alone should make it pretty exciting if you don't count the Ford GT, but they only made a few versions of that model. I think you're going to build seven street Ford GTS and for all intents and purposes this is a Ford GT it has the ZF transmission the v8 the same location almost the same wheelbase yes they are still reasonably priced and have a fanatical following.

I think it's the only real supercar that's for the guy who can't afford a Ferrari or With the Lamborghini you actually get a lot more power than you wouldn't get three away for one of these, so what was the problem with him? Which was the reason? Well, in my opinion, Ditomasso never finished any car. The build quality was not good when I went looking for a Pantera. I went on, I think I brought a trailer and there was a completely original 71 Pantera and unmolested, you don't want them to not be very good from the factory, they overheated the suspension problem, just everything, this is the guy. car, you find someone in the Pantera owners club who has made all the improvements, who has made sensible modifications to make the car safer, handle better and run cooler, and that's the one you want to get and this is the one I got, but Let's meet the man who publishes this magazine here.

This is the Pantera owners club. Profiles of America. He's pretty much Pantera's go-to guy. At least he's the guy I went to and he hasn't disappointed me. Mike Drew. Mike, go ahead. How are you friend? Well, Jayde, thanks for having me. The privilege is a privilege to have you here. I am overwhelmed by your knowledge of these cars. You know, when I was a kid, this seemed like the best value for money. They cost less than $10,000 and were mid-engined and sold at a dealership or dealership. Well these things made a big impression on me when I was a kid, the first time I saw one was in

1971

when they first came out.

I was six years old and completely enthralled and determined to own one and in fact my Pantera was the first car I ever owned. I didn't have a driver's license and didn't know how to drive when I bought mine. I had only driven motorcycles before because I wasn't going to drive anything but a Pantera and how much did you pay for that car? I bought Pantera's worst piece of rusty junk because it was the only thing I could find. I paid $13,000, wow, that's a lot. money, oh it was 1989, yeah, I convinced myself that then I could restore all the rust and all the damage that was done to the car and at the end of the day I have a car that I wanted pretty much like that for a reasonable amount of money I was completely wrong, yes it worked, so my life's mission is to help people avoid the mistake I made and instead buy a car like this, already done by someone else you know.

Elegantly, any other mid-'70s supercar with that much power, especially mid-engined, and at this point it would probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum and a quarter at most, well, wherever, you can still get them for twenty-five thousand. The market is just starting to recognize the value of these cars, but the only ones that are really going through the roof now are the ones that appeal to the real connoisseurs, that are very original, very original and unmolested, like the ones from Pebble Beach , and those cars have probably appreciated. 25 percent in the last year but they are not very good, they can be, yes, they work very well when they were new, true, but Ford developed over the course of the four years that they were on the market a series of modifications and updates that were formed. at the dealership, so if a conscientious owner returned his car to the dealership, he could fix the errors at no cost, and one of those cars, if that's how all that stuff works, is a viable proposition, yes, yes, this one is the model.

I like the 71 because it doesn't have those big, silly rubber bumpers and all that kind of stuff. I didn't like it later when someone else took over and did the big flare and that was a De Tomaso thing that was a They tried to keep the car relevant in the Lamborghini Countach era and grew wings and flares and big wheels and wide and they also raised the price tremendously, they had a price increase of about eight hundred percent, but this is really a car that was designed. From the beginning, to fill a market niche that didn't really exist, he invented his own market niche because it had similar performance to a twenty thousand dollar plus Ferrari Daytona, but half the cost of a Daytona, but it was around of 50 percent. more expensive than a Corvette there was no ten thousand dollar supercar in 1971 there were twenty thousand dollar supercars and six thousand dollar Corvettes now they all had 351 Clevelands, all again with the 351 Cleveland which was Ford's new high performance engine of the time and the engine specifications changed from 71 to 74 as the various emissions laws changed because the engines were effectively being taken off the Ford Mustang production line, so any Mustang that arrived in a given year It's what the Pantera had the right to abandon and these are sold in Lincoln. -mercury dealers would come in, there would be your puma, it would be your Lincoln Town Car and it's a pride, it seems like a strange choice if you look at Ford's previous experience of dipping into the high performance market with the Shelby Mustangs and Shelby Cobras .

They were typically sold at Ford dealerships that were very performance oriented, yes, but with that you'd think it might be a logical place to put them. I understand this because it's like when Acura anywhere else in the world the NSX is a Honda in America it's the Acura because where I thought Oh, no one's going to spend seventy-nine thousand dollars on the Honda, whatever it is, so let's do it. accurate and it's the first mid-engined car produced by an American manufacturer, isn't it? I think it's correct if you want it. I mean, considering the cars were made in Italy, one can debate whether it's genuinely an American car or not.

I think most people would still consider it an Italian car, basically a Ford GT. You have the ZF gearbox, the correct engines in the same place. Before GT never came with this fifty one, but that's why for me I always thought they were awesome cars and never understood why they bottomed out once the bugs were worked out, they are certainly quite capable. They are unusually capable cars for a car of this type, they are much more practical than any of their contemporaries in terms of luggage space and space, and you can use them like a normal car, yes, one thing you want to do if you are looking for a Pantera is receive the club newsletter find other club owners there is always a club owner who is getting older or getting tired of the car the gentleman I bought this car I was about 20 years old I loved it I took care of it, I made all kinds of modifications to it, it is You might pay a little more, but you get something right from the start, the air conditioning works, it doesn't overheat, I'm surprised how small I have to carry.

I take my shoes off to drive it, it's actually tighter than a Lamborghini Miura, which surprised me. It was designed around the Italian demographic of the time, which was the average Italian, five foot nine, long arms and all, but it has a closed door. shifter has all kinds of supercars from the 60s and 70s, little tracks in there, no ABS, no traction control, none of that you do yourself and it's a Ford so you fix it with a hammer, that's it cool, it's surprisingly easy to work on people talk about you know, particularly hot rodders look at that and look at the engine sitting there and think, oh my gosh, I would never want to have one of these, it would be impossible to work on it, but while It's true that the engine access to the front requires a little effort, it's not impossible, you know, to get some panels out of the way.

I put them on the other side. I changed a gearbox and one of these things in a hotel parking lot. Yes, literally, you just pull. you take the thing out and drop it on the ground and put a new one in and that's it, it's got to be a great vacation by the way, the good thing about this is that you know cars like this because they're not expensive, for our reason, other cars, in So you get a lot of guys that are DIYers, guys that are hot rodders, guys that know how to work on cars and you have a company like Ford that actually tried to sell this car and they sold it like any other car, they treated it like any other car. and all of their internal processes are that there will be full documentation to go with, yeah, I mean, not only do you get the newsletter, well, you guys published this.

The technical information which is basically all the manuals and wiring diagrams and everything that on paper will cost about three hundred dollars is available on CD-ROM four seventy five and then you have these that are factory and this is a manual of workshop intended only for distributors. They are my processes amplified in the normal shop manual and that is to continually update the car, find and fix faults and issue technical service bulletins to dealers and this is a total of fourteen of these bulletins, each of which had numerous small corrections and improvements and they have been put together into one manual and this here is the Ford parts book, every part on the car has a Ford part number, that's the best thing about it, you know?

That's the Italian parts book, which is the same parts with a different number, and one of the things that's really remarkable about these cars, that makes them so easy to own, is that every part of the car is still available as new, yes. In addition to used correctly, I like to say that these cars have about a hundred and thirty percent parts availability because not only can you get all the factory parts, but there is also a robust aftermarket that is much larger than which it should, given the relatively small number of cars there are. were produced and how many cars were produced and sold in the US, you know, 5,244, okay, Ford brought us to the United States between 71 and 74 of a total production of about 6,500, the rest of the cars were they sold in Europe and then when Ford closed Ditomasso with the Pantera program, which they practically owned, at that point the gas shortage had hit and cars like this were just not in style and were harder to sell and Ford just closed everything , but Ditomasso retained. manufacturing marketing rights after that date and against all expectations they continued to build the cars more or less by hand instead of a production GT5.

I heard that on the night of 1980 they tried again to compete with the Lamborghini Countach which at that time was already getting a little long and Lamborghini had improved it by putting wings and styling on it and ditomasso did the same and put fiberglass flares on it and wider wheels and the same wing as the Countach on the right and then called it a new model for gt5 on the right. and then I even updated it further and made the fleet defenders wider steel, the GT 5 for steel, now the ZF gearbox parts are still available, they are easy to get, they are actually easy to get, in fact, you can buy a new ZF gearbox. they're still in the manufacturing process, the world's source for them is right, it's right here in Southern California and you talk about access, well, here, come this way and we'll open the back for you.

This is the most successful view of the car, you know? The back of this one I love the way it looks with the four pipes and the little bumpers, but let's show you the engine. One of the notable things about this car is that, unlike other cars of its type, it has a relatively cavernous trunk, yes, that's right. It's irregularly shaped so it doesn't tolerate large fixed bags, but if you traveled with several small bags you can add a huge amount of luggage in the back of the Pantera and there's another compartment in the front, but your mufflers are right below here, so that if you carry in chocolate it is not good for chocolate, butter or wine, yes, yes, but it comes out well, it comes out well and, as you can see, it is very easy to get to the transmission, well, you can change it in the hotel parking lot, the clutch, actually, yeah, yeah, we will. trying to get to the beach as soon as we can, yes it took us from start to finish changing the clutch on this car in a parking lot, including time to drink beer, less than three hours.

Wow, no, that's what I call a vacation, yeah, okay, obviously. These are all things that have been added exactly, yes, again, the aftermarket for these cars identifies both deficiencies and just areas where the aesthetics can be improved, it will change the aesthetics like a hot rod style and this car has quite a few of those improvements to include a chassis. Hebooster kit that does what it says well makes the chassis much stiffer and allows the suspension to work better because on defense I imagine when most people use these hotrods and put a lot more power through the 351 that was on it originally, so even if the chassis might have taken the original horse bra by the time you upgrade it, it's relatively easy and relatively inexpensive to get pretty substantial power increases out of the engines due to advances in technology and roller cams and stuff So, and many Americans did.

I didn't quite get it, it was really a bold move on Ford's part to try to bring the super exotic Italian car to the masses, yes, and they thought that with economies of scale, they could lower the price, yes, and really market them to a group big and were reasonably successful. Of course, they had to combat the bad reputation the initial cars got due to their extremely poor quality and then of course the gasoline. decisive success, that was the genius of Lee Iacocca, he flees and I've become friends and he's been here a bunch of times and he was the marketing genius, you know, let's get one of those Italian cars that some people use, the giant that where we got this program that speaks bad Italian off the ground, then it was in Italy and then you know it's just fantastic, no one, it's really unfortunate that Ford, I think, got a little scared because both General Motors and the humble AMC are preparing to or at least talking about bringing mid-engine sports cars to market and Ford absolutely wanted to be the first, they knew from Lee Iacocca's experience with the Mustang that if you were the first to bring a car in a certain market niche to market , you owned that market, so this car went from being a bright spark in someone's idea to cars rolling off a production line and just nine months.

Wow, it was woefully underdeveloped because there was a rush to get it to market right away and that's why it suffered so much in quality. problems at the beginning of its age and again there is that liberating booster kit, unfortunately it eats up some of the boot space but yes a normal car wouldn't have that there and it can also have a reasonable amount of luggage in the front and the Obviously, The first thing you want to do is replace the stock with a nice custom aluminum. There are half a dozen different variations of radiators and fans at UPS to help keep these cars cool and any of them will do a fantastic job.

The whole design is an interesting story, although it is a very Italian looking car, it was designed by Ghia which at the time was run by an American expat called Tom Jordan, oh yeah Tom shook, his father was actually a known. car designer in his own right, yes I mean his columns, he still writes for many magazines, right, he is a very nice guy, yes Maria, and this is certainly his most famous design, although he also did some things, he did some Ferraris, he made the Fiat 120, budget cars like the original, it's a very attractive car to me and it's a good sized car and it's a bit ridiculous when the headlights are on, it looks a bit strange, you know, the strange thing is which at that time in that context, a car with pop-up headlights was thought to be very special, right?

Do you think the Maserati Bora, the Lotus Esprit, all these pointy wedge cars from the 1970s? We all had flip-up headlights and that was considered a feature. Now we'd think we see it as a styling mistake, yes, yes, but it's still a good-looking car and it's kind of a timeless design. I mean, today you could almost have this exact shape and it wouldn't look like you know it's the '70s. People who don't know cars, if you pull up next to them and ask them what it is, if you tell them it's a new car, they don't bat an eyelid, they absolutely believe this was built last week instead of 40 years ago.

Makes you know it's time to take off my shoes and go for a ride, okay let's go over the inside of the car, as you can see the steering wheel, someone added this little clock here that drives me crazy, but that's stock, obviously we have your speedometer tachometer windshield wipers notice I have the car's wipers there in the trunk four-way flashers pretty standard stuff dimmer switch you have oil pressure water temperature ammeter fuel headlights auxiliary cooling fan power windows interior fan and on the other side of the tail light roof here from these your heater controls and these are the air conditioning controls and your two vents here, so it works pretty well, but PS: there's your stance, of course, the famous closed shifter that you have in reverse here up and then you have a little bit of a curvature where you go down first. gear here and then boom boom boom boom I have something sexy about these closed shifters that I like because they're Italian, you have to have your little ashtray here and you have your cigarette lighter or charging port as it's called now, the visibility is very good outside the car you can see well from the back and the front is very short and with good side mirrors nothing is a problem here it is, open the hood here and that's pretty basic, you can look like an Italian car, but and To Me, this falls into the Corvette Porsche thing of people modifying their cars.

You know, when you go to track days you don't see many Ferraris or Lamborghinis, or if you do and they're not modified, they're usually just originals, except for retired Porsches. Corvette. guys and to some extent Harley ladies, we have all modified their vehicle and Pantera is the same too, as you say it is almost impossible to find an original one because everyone wants to individualize it or at least make it better than it was and there really is no such thing if you would like a well-known stereotype, a typical Pantera, well let's go down the road if you want, if someone tells you I just bought them a Ferrari 308, you know right away, you know what that car is, it's probably red.

It is absolutely original and you have a very clear image, whereas if someone tells you that if I just bought a Pantera without further details, yes, it could be a concours stock car, it could be an Italian version of a 32 Street rod with Chrome, games and flares. yes, for a typical Pantera you would have to have six or seven ghosts, yes, because there is such a wide variety, I know it really is a nice car to drive and it is truly exotic, even though it has a Ford 351, it really is exotic. the gearbox makes it exotic the styling makes it exotic even the four wheel disc brakes from the early seventies become exotic they just grow the fist occator on their head oh yeah, have I ever seen that dealer mercury with a cap sign and They would show the Cougar and then it would be the Pantera and it was because the salesman had no idea how to sell them.

They were too small inside Celerio and all very well. These cars have a very musical exhaust note even though it has a Mustang engine in it, you close your eyes it doesn't sound like a Mustang at all yeah because the Italian exhaust is the exhaust has a completely different character and although It has the deep abasa of an American v8, it also has a kind of musical feel. Italian quality tune, it's weird you realize, it's got that 70's thing where you send it at an angle because of the pillars in the front so your legs go in that direction, yeah when you sit in the car , you are in a normal car.

Your pedals are kind of centered on the steering wheel. I better called Pantera, your clutch pedal is nice when two align with the center of the steering wheel on the right, which is the opposite of, say, a 427 Cobra. I put this place towards the outside of one of the things. What I really like about Pantera is that the community of owners is very intimate, yes, very friendly and helpful, and it has completely changed my life in the way they would have hoped to include it. That's how I met my wife. Oh, I had a bad Sarah.

I had a bad Tara oh we really met through that and then together in episode 71 czb the year everyone was fine certainly the chrome bumper cars yeah yeah although the good thing is that again because of aftermarket strength, you can perfect chrome bumpers for later victims. Yeah cool, these cars really stand out, yeah you know a road that will take it, in a country that will tolerate it, they settle down and become very composed, you feel like you're driving a knee and then you look at this stick, yeah eyes . They're passing by, you get so dark, no matter what gear you're in, they're so happy at 3000rpm coming out of corners, dragging you onto the throttle and you know I've only been in the Mantaro world for a short time.

I only had this car for a short time and I met Mike and some other guys and you learned a lot, you know, when a lot of the exotic cars you have to go to the dealership and of course that gets a little crazy and everything you don't do. I don't have to go to a specialized mechanic, he uses a pointer and stars it, yes, as the only one who can take care of his engine, where it is located most of the way, it is located inside the Caliph. I certainly see California preponderantly. of them in southern California were very popular here, now you mentioned that there were five thousand and something sent to the US, right, and many of them remain, how many were destroyed, you know, there is a surprisingly high survival rate for These cars, yes, there are them.

It's a worldwide ditomasso a w in a provolone calm ero vo the ROV amo dot-com provolone registry and there are over 4,000 ditomasso cars on that registry and more are being discovered every day, they're coming out of barns and

garage

s and the original owners are dying Yes, Cars are discovered all the time, now there is one about young guys who have had modern cars with traction control and abs and they come back and buy something like this. Do they get scared and want to say have you had that? You know, you feel bewildered by the lack of, and I guess it may take some people who were used to modern cars by surprise, all the Band-Aids and safety nets with them, but that's part of the appeal of driving in a more timely age. ancient.

The car, exactly, is a much more intimate relationship, well, for you it is more or less a Pantera 71. I am delighted to have this car. You know, I bought it on a whim. I always wanted one as a kid and I saw what I mentioned and brought a preview from that website we all go to. I saw a totally original one and then they did my homework. I realized that maybe I don't want an original one that will need too many updates when I find someone who's already been there. fact and Scott Penske who had this car for 20 years and took wonderful care of it and also used Mike as his guru on it and I want to especially thank Mike Drew for helping me.

You know that every car has that guy who knows it inside and If it's Duesenberg, it's Randy EEMA, if it's Lamborghinis, it's a guy, but it's Pantera, go to Mike and he has been a great help for this car because I'm not so familiar with this as with some. Of the others, I usually have a car for a couple of years before I film it, but I bought this one and then after a few months let's just film it and we'll post it on the website, so Mike, thank you very much, thank you for all your aid.

Remember that if you are thinking of buying a Pantera, join the club, you will find other people who know who, where the good guys are, where the bad guys are, a lot of people sell a lot of things with bondo and all that, especially sleazy dealers. You know what I'm talking about, you don't want to buy from a club owner because they will protect you because they want to see these cars continue to run in perpetuity and guys like Mike love this and this is the More Money Than Brain Club doing this stuff, yeah, you really go broke doing this, but hey, we love these cars, so once again, Mike, thank you very much on behalf of Pantera, world welcome to the club, yeah, well, now at the Pantera Club, gee, see you. guys next week