DeTomaso Mailing List: June 2001, Message #117

This was in yesterdays The Sunday Times  readership 5m - written by the UK's
most famous loved/hated motoring journalist, TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson.
Also online at http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/, link motoring / clarkson. The
article appeared on the back page of the sports section with a nice photo of
a Pantera 2000 targa, with the following headline.

The only way to tame this brute is to shoot it dead

YOU'VE no doubt heard about the perfect world where the French are the
cooks, the Italians are the lovers, the British provide a police force and
the Germans promise to stay at home. Yes, well it doesn't work with cars
either.

We've had the Alfa Romeo Arna, which was supposed to have been a blend of
Italian style and Japanese build quality. But unfortunately they got it the
wrong way round and we ended up with a Nissan Sunny that had been nailed
together in Naples.

Then there was the BMW M1. They got everything right. The right engine. The
right styling. But then who did they get to build the bodies? Yes, that
byword for "it'll do" engineering, Lamborghini.

And what about the De Tomaso Pantera? To all intents and purposes it was an
Italian supercar. It looked like one. It went like one and was built like
one, in Modena. However, in the back was a big old Hector of an American V8,
an engine so simple it could be serviced by Victoria Hervey.

So, if it's such an alluring cocktail of Italian style and American brute
force, why can you now buy one for less than #10,000? Why did Elvis Presley
take his Pantera to a piece of waste ground and shoot it? And why, if the
car was in production for 22 years, have you never seen one?

The company was started by Alejandro de Tomaso, whose Italian father was
prime minister of Argentina. After Peron came to power, young Alejandro
began an underground newspaper, but when the heat was turned up he came over
all Italian and decided to flee.

Within what seems like about 15 minutes he'd started his own car firm and
bought Maserati, Innocenti, Moto Guzzi and the styling firm Ghia. Then came
the deal with Ford. It would take Ghia off his hands and in return his cars,
with big Ford Cleveland engines, would be sold through the Lincoln dealer
network in the States.

Ford thought it would have a car to rival GM's Corvette and talked about
0-60 in 4.5sec and a top speed of 175mph. Unfortunately, figures like this
can only be achieved if the car starts, which the Pantera never did. It was
spectacularly unreliable, which is why Elvis got out the Magnum.

Ford pulled the plug after just two years, but the Pantera soldiered on,
sprouting wings from Boeing, wheel-arch extensions that looked like Denis
Healey's eyebrows and tyres that were wide enough to flatten a sausage dog.

Power crazy: the Pantera has a problem with going straight

In theory, tyres this big should provide massive grip but in practice, as
Quentin Willson, will testify, they didn't. Coming the wrong way round Copse
Corner at Silverstone, he ran out of talent at a critical moment, hit the
Armco and bounced into the pit wall.

You may be wondering why he isn't on Top Gear any more. It's simple. The
accident is still happening. Last I heard, he was seen zigzagging from
pillar to post just outside Hereford.

I'm lying. The crash was over in just under a year, the car was rebuilt, and
last week I squeezed into the cockpit to see if the Pantera is as bad as
it's cracked up to be.

The first problem is the engine, which has so much power and torque that it
will light up those rear tyres in third, in the dry. Mentally, I made a note
to avoid the lower gears but this revealed the second problem. You can find
a gear if you persevere for long enough but you never really know what it
is.

You think you've got fourth, so you let the clutch back in only to find that
it was second and now, to see where you're going, you need to look out of
the side window.

You go everywhere in this car sideways, fighting the wheel, fighting the
gearbox and fighting the brakes. Throw in a tumultuous baritone soundtrack
and it makes quite a spectacle.

Indeed, as I slithered this way and that, provoking the beast and then
taming it again, an appreciative crowd began to gather. There was much
pointing and whooping. Small boys jumped up and down and clutched at their
private parts. Women swooned.

Eventually, I stepped out and sauntered over to explain the intricacies of
such fast driving, and maybe sign a few autographs. Unfortunately, none of
them knew who I was.

What had drawn them in was the sheets of flame that shot out of the exhaust
every time I eased my foot off the throttle. Now this, plainly, is A Good
Thing, but from inside the car you can't see them. So, if you must buy a
Pantera, here's a tip. Employ someone else to drive it, and then tag along
behind in a normal car, enjoying the view.

....don't shoot the messenger, BTW Mr Clarkson listed an early Pantera as a
top car in one or his many books.
notes Victory Hervey is a useless gossip columist, Quenton Wilson is another
TV journalist.