"I had no idea what it was, but I was mesmerized,” recalls Jim Demick of the first time he laid eyes on a De Tomaso Pantera. The young car enthusiast in the making, who was 12 years old at the time, was on a car shopping trip at the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer with his parents.
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There is a critical piece of information missing in this article.
How tall is the owner?
I find that most people over 5'6" are pretty uncomfortable in them. At 6', I can barely drive an unmodified one.
On a Pantera owner's drive a year or two ago, I met Jim Demmick and his extraordinary car, and it is certainly a thing of beauty. My '72 which looks much the same has had many of the same upgrades done to it as well. For 18 years, as Jim said, it spent more time in the shop than I ever drove it, and in 2013 when I bought my Jag XKR, I just gave up drving the Pantera altogether. After a couple of years of just looking at it in my driveway, I knew I had to make a decision to either get rid of it as Jim did with his first one, or make it a car I could actually drive wherever and whenever I wanted to without worry and in a comfortable, luxurious manner. Four years of modification and restoration gave me the car it should always have been, and I now drive it every weekend and sometimes more. The one good thing about owning it for so long is that I hit my 70th birthday this year, I realized I had shrunk about 3-4" in height from my previous nearly 6'-3" so I actually fit pretty comfortably in it now, something that never happened when I was a younger owner. Now if only I could shrink my big feet so that I could drive the car with shoes on for the first time, that would be somethin'!
Trent said:I find that most people over 5'6" are pretty uncomfortable in them. At 6', I can barely drive an unmodified one.
Don't say that. The Pantera is my ultimate dream car. I'd trade my whole fleet for one. That'd suck if I couldn't drive it.
In reply to iansane :
Pantera Parts Connection will sell you a set of dropped floor pans so you can cut and weld a solution. You can also relocate the pedals forward.
My dad had one of these new from the local Lincoln Mercury dealer. Although a beast in a straight line, it always felt like the CG was too high, perhaps from the big V8. We also had a Dino 206GT at the time and felt the Dino far outhandled the Pantera. Ultimate insult when I got an 84 TBird Turbo Coupe, and we both agreed that it handled better and was more fun than the Pantera on a curvy back road. Sounds like the current owners may have addressed some of the those issues. Beautiful cars, enjoy!
Only driven one once but agree with the caution that it has limited space - the front firewall is a hard limit and with the seat all the way back it was a pretty tight fit for me (5'10")
I was in High School at Lake Brantley and it was around 1976 or so. Cars had just changed to unleaded fuel and the Chrylser Cordoba was the norm. Other than the Pontiac Trans Am, there was very little cool in Altamonte Springs, Florida. But at the corner of highway 436 and 434 there was a Mobil gas station owned by the Zych brothers. They each had a pantera, one silver and one white.
One of my buddies worked for them as pump jockey. I worked at the competing Exxon station. On one occaision I stopped in just in time to catch one of the brothers doing a triple donut right there in the parking lot. Wow what a sight. All these years later I still remember that burn out with awe.
Even though I am fortunate to have a Ford GT I still think the Pantera is one impressive beast. The 351 Cleveland remains in my opinion as the best bang for the buck for an engine in that era. Tons of power and not an empty the bank scenario if you break something. I know the cars had over-heating problems but they are still awesome looking and performing cars.
I went to an Italian Car Day at Pocono raceway back in 1998. Lots of Ferraris (includig some single-seaters) and one or two Panteras. It was great listening to the Ferraris scream past and then the big NASCAR V8 noise of the Pantera.
I'm a hair over six feet. I didn't drive it, but I rode in a Pantera belonging to a friend and didn't find it too cramped. He did try to install some upgraded seats and that was a total fail, they had a couple extra inches of padding compared to the originals which took up all the headroom.
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