DeTomaso Mailing List: October 2000, Message #29

Well, I put a total of about 1300 miles (2100 km) on two cars this weekend, and I would have to say that it honestly was not nearly as much fun as I was hoping. Since the windshield wipers aren't even mounted on my '72 you can tell how much driving in the rain I do (it's never been in the rain, during my watch). I can also tell you that driving  a GT5-S in the rain is NOT my idea of a good time. 

The trip started ok Friday morning, but within the first hour the rain started to fall. It was cold and wet, I also had another first - I've never turned the heat on in a Pantera before, but I did this weekend. The drive of 800 kilometers took three hours longer than predicted, mainly because the harder it rained the slower I drove. There were more times than I can count on one hand where I could physically feel the car simply floating across the water instead of being connected to the road. This is NOT a good feeling. That car aquaplanes if you just THINK the word puddle. 

About an hour from my destination I started hearing a weird noise, it would last for about 4 or 5 seconds, and sounded like air rushing. It was coming from behind the passenger seat, about where the compressor for the A/C would be. I noticed that this noise would go away if I turned off the heat/air completely, ie put it on OFF. Put it back on "vent" or something, and then I started to hear a different noise, a rattle/scrape. This noise didn't sound good so I cracked the window to get some airflow and left the control on "off". 

I got to my appointment to have the car appraised and inspected by my insurance company. They put the car up on a lift, we searched for the source of that rattle, and it was coming from the A/C pulley area. Bearings of the compressor, I guess. The good news is that they poked and prodded, tested and inspected, and the car is in excellent condition. The bad news is that the bearings are apparently totally shot in the compressor, so my newly repaired A/C is non-functional, and it makes a kind of ugly noise. 

Saturday saw my team totally dominate the "Mother of all Paintball battles", and I escaped with only two bruises from paintballs that I have found, which is significantly better than last time! And I set the record for the most number of refills of paintballs. If you don't have a sound strategy, my strategy is just to keep firing! 

Sunday I went and got my '72 out of storage and headed off for Paris. After driving my GT5-S, I had forgotten how stiff the clutch and gas pedal are in this car! Completely different... This was the only time I had good weather the whole trip, which I guess is good (remember the comment about never having mounted the windshield wipers...) I got to talk to the nice Gendarmes twice, explaining why I don't have a license plate on the front... A wholly uneventful drive, I only got lost twice. But with heavy traffic I only got one shot of my car in front of the Eiffel tower, it was "hop out of the car at a red light, snap a pic, and hop back in" kind of deal. We'll see how it turns out. 

I met up with Stephane Poux, who arrived in his Maserati quattroporte. I followed him  to his showroom, actually the basement of an indoor garage, and parked my car next to his collection of cars for sale. Probably a dozen DeTomasos, a 1990 GT5-S, a couple older Panteras, a Pantera 200, a Deauville, two Longchamps, a Ferrari Testarossa, an early '70s Cadillac (??!) and his Guara. There are a couple people looking for  a car to vintage race, he'll contact them to see i fthey are still looking. In any case, I stand a better chance selling it there than in a garage in Nantes, France, which is where it was. 

We cruised the Champs Elysees in his Maserati. It sounded a little loud for a luxury car, I don't know if it needed a new muffler or is supposed to sound that way, but talk about a luxurious interior! I took the subway to the train station at Montparnasse, then took a train back to Nantes. 

I hopped back in the GT5-S and headed off. I was exactly 30 seconds into the trip when it started to rain. The only thing worse than driving this car in the rain is driving at NIGHT in the rain. The windshield wipers do a great job clearing water from the lower part of the windshield, but unfortunately do a lousy job cleaning my line of sight. So I had to squinch down (squinch?) to see out. The instrument panel of the later cars does look nice at night. The gauges each have their own lights, like the older cars, but there are also a couple of overhead lights lighting the entire panel. They look nice and are effective. But I don't like the location of the windshield wiper switch. If it is night, you are squinting to see the road, you really don't want to have to look down to find that switch. I would sort of feel around for it with my right hand until I found it, but it took a while sometimes. 

Still rattling from the A/C compressor, I tiptoed my way home. 500 miles in this car is a LONG drive when you are not having fun and are afraid of aquaplaning into a guardrail at any puddle. And the closer I got to the Spanish border, the more I started to see signs that the border was closed. Not knowing why, I continued. It turns out that the truck drivers are still all bent out of shape about the price of gas (I'll trade with you California drivers any day!!) and were blocking the border. As it was now 2am, this was just what I needed. By driving on the shoulder, between trucks, then following a police van I made by way to the border, but it took nearly two hours to do it. Then that mountain road drive that I usually love so much, but in the driving rain, with no real shoulder it wasn't as fun as it usually is. If you aquaplane here, you come to a rest 500 feet down.... 

So I got home at 5am, unloaded in the driving rain, and went to bed. So now I need to see what is going on with my compressor, but it sounds like I may need a new one. Other than that, the car ran fine, but the weather sure made it a long drive.... Why am I so tired today?? It sure seemed like a short night sleep...

Charlie McCall 
1972 DeTomaso Pantera Pre-L #3847 (for sale)
1985 Pantera GT5-S #9375
"Raising Pantera Awareness across Europe"
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/gt5s_1985