Usually, unfinished cars and barn finds sell for well beneath a car's market value if it were in immaculate condition, but this De Tomaso Pantera sold at auction for $226,000. A considerable amount more than the usual $30,000 asking price that this classic Italian supercar asks for on the used market. But this car has what all gear heads adore, a story.
Connecting the Italian manufacturer, Chrysler, Carroll Shelby and the infamous Dodge Viper. The De Tomaso Pantera is a legend in Italian classic cars. Penned by Marcello Gandini, it shared a designer with Lamborghini's Countach, arguably the 1980s most revered car. This influence is obvious in the Pantera's wedge design.
Beneath the hood is a Ford V6 engine which supported the model from its release in 1972 till its final incarnation in 1991. Over the twenty-year production span, over 7,000 models sold. With an engine the car would hit 60 miles per hour in 7.3 seconds and would accelerate to 150 miles per hour, perfectly respectable for a classic car.
This Pantera connects the dots between some of the 20th century's greatest cars.
This Example's Story
Beau Boeckmann of G.A.S Extreme Customs collects, modifies and restores vehicles for a program on the Discovery Network. They acquired an engine-less De Tomaso Pantera. The hosts admits that the $226,000 price tag turned heads for its eye-watering figure. A considerable premium over any recent Pantera auction, and with good reason.
The car spent its life under the ownership of Carroll Shelby of Ford tuning fame. The car came into the muscle car hero's ownership in 1987. As part of the Dodge Viper's development, which Shelby played a pivotal role in the car had its Ford V6 engine removed and swapped for the twin-turbo 5.9 liter V8 that found its way to the White Mule test car.
This continued the one-upmanship that existed between Shelby and Alejandro De Tomaso. When the Viper launched in 1991 it had the V10 engine, which Lamborghini helped design. But most importantly the De Tomaso is mid-engined, the brainchild of Lee Iaccoca could have been mid-engined and even more exotic.
The Pantera's Story Is Just As Interesting
Alejandro De Tomaso's life was equally fascinating as this Pantera. Having fled Argentina after getting into a spot of political trouble, the businessman landed on his feet in Modena, having briefly competed in Formula One and having married into wealth. The Argentinian set up De Tomaso and acquired the renowned coach builder Ghia.
Beau Boeckmann acknowledges that he named his car the Mangusta, Italian for Mongoose, a predator of the Cobra. Thus, why fitting a Pantera with a larger engine was an excellent place to start when developing the Viper, a car that brought American exotics into the 1990s and thus progressed the era of design that the Pantera embodies.
A Maserati Supercar
The Argentinian businessman also bought Maserati in 1975. Although the Pantera launched before De Tomaso owned Maserati, the two brands ended up coming to share a design philosophy with Maserati stepping toward the sharp and bold design that the De Tomaso models used.
This same design style would find an evolution in the ill-fated Chrysler TC by Maserati. The De Tomaso Pantera is part of a rather complicated web that intertwines Maserati, Chrysler, Argentina, Carroll Shelby and the Dodge Viper. It's the sort of story that makes a particular car incredibly expensive.