[DeTomaso] Fantastic Nor-Cal Pantera for sale

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

 Hi guys,

I periodically examine local Panteras for sale, with an eye towards linking 
sellers with prospective buyers.  Recently I had the opportunity to view a 
really beautiful Pantera that’s for sale in the town of Rough and Ready, CA.  If 
that sounds like it’s out in the boondocks, you’re right.  It is outside of 
Grass Valley, which itself is about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, CA.

It’s owned by a fellow named Bill Jordan, who is an SCCA racer (Spec Ford), 
and who simply doesn’t have the time to enjoy the Pantera properly, as he is 
totally wound up by his racing.

The car in question is a 1974 Pantera GTS, VIN THGTPL07052.  It is currently 
on a salvage title (more on that later), but has benefited from an extremely 
meticulous seven-year restoration.  Curiously, the fellow who did all the work 
(the previous owner) elected to delete any traces of GTS from the car, 
eliminating the stock color scheme, GTS flares etc.  The only thing (other than the 
VIN) that would tip somebody off to this car’s GTS-ness is the clock on the 
passenger side of the dashboard.

Bill doesn’t have many details about the nature of the car’s accident 
history (although he is still in touch with the previous owner and can get any 
questions answered).  He said that it had been involved in an accident on the left 
side quarter panel between the door and the wheel.  However, in looking at the 
photos I took, I realized that the interior has been changed; it has none of 
the GTS-specific items (except for the aforementioned clock).  GTS Panteras 
had a unique three-spoke steering wheel, Ghia badge in the shift knob, and the 
tach and speedo were specially made without the De Tomaso logos; all those 
items are no longer present.  So this might have a story similar to the other 
Pantera GTS that sold a few weeks ago, which had undergone an interior fire which 
led to a full restoration.

This car is now painted a very vibrant red (it basically looks like a stock 
L-model), with no flares.  During the restoration it was taken down to bare 
metal and any damage was repaired (and Bill has the photos showing it in bare 
metal).  The paint job on the car is simply outstanding, far better than OEM 
quality.  I could only see one minor chip in the paint, caused by over-opening the 
front hood and hitting the inside of the L-model bumper.  “Hibachi” vents 
have been added to the front hood.

All the chrome trim is blacked out (which was standard on GTS Panteras).  
There are no “DeTomaso”, “Pantera” or “GTS” badges on the rear of the car (all 
the holes have been filled), nor are there any Ghia badges on the flanks.  
The Ghia badge on the front bumper has been replaced with a De Tomaso logo, 
which again makes this car look like an L-model.

It has 7-inch Pre-L Campy wheels in the front and 10-inch Campys in the rear, 
fitted with BFG Euro T/A tires, 225/50-15 and 305/50-15, with almost zero 
wear.

The interior has been tastefully modified.  The stock seats have been 
replaced with leather-covered Recaros (whose headrests aren’t installed--I forgot to 
ask if he has them or not).  A brushed aluminum insert has been let into the 
front of the dashboard, and a Panasonic stereo is fitted.  The stock seatbelts 
are gone (and in fact the retractors at the base of the interior panel, and 
the retractor covers, are missing, leaving large holes visible in the 
upholstery).  It is possible to see extensive sound and heat insulation through these 
holes; apparently the whole cabin has been treated thusly.  Generic aftermarket 
three-point seatbelts are in place, and they work quite well.

The stock headliner is absent; a light gray headliner is installed, and the 
four surrounding trim pieces have been covered in gray vinyl.

The stock steering wheel has been replaced by a LeCarra wheel, and like every 
Pantera I’ve ever seen with one of these wheels, during the installation the 
bushing at the base of the steering column broke, and thus the upper U-joint 
is dragging on the tube, and there is unwanted in-and-out motion of the wheel.  
(This is something that most owners never even notice until it’s pointed out, 
and thankfully it is easily fixed with a $16 bushing from Pantera Performance 
Center).  The stock shift knob has been replaced with a Hall Pantera 
oversized knob with De Tomaso logo.

One true oddity is the fact that this car has two ignition switches!  The 
rheostat to the left of the headlight switch has been replaced with a generic 
ignition switch, and the original switch is also in place.  I can only surmise 
that the stock switch broke (the electrical portion can conk out), and rather t
han spending the big bucks to replace the entire switch, the previous owner 
decided to just keep it there and utilize the steering lock function, and rewire 
the circuit to incorporate a new switch on the dash. 

Perhaps as a byproduct of eliminating the rheostat, none of the vertical 
panel instrument lights work.  As a late-model car, this car has a pair of green 
floodlights under the dash which illuminate the panel, and reduce the necessity 
for individual instrument lights.  (The other rheostat, to the left of the 
steering column, still functions normally by dimming the main instrument 
lights).

Up front, a Hall Pantera radiator is cooled by aftermarket, Brand X pusher 
fans.  They have the appearance of stock fans (i.e. they are not the larger 
Meriah units), but the blades look like those from Meriah.  The person who 
restored the car bought most (all?) of the parts from Hall Pantera, so it’s possible 
that’s where they came from.  The car also has a Hall master cylinder (but 
otherwise stock brakes), and braided steel brake lines.

The engine bay is very clean.  1974 Panteras had no undercoating in the 
engine compartment, and instead were finished in a satin black.  Because this car 
had to pass smog inspections until fairly recently, a bunch of smog equipment 
is still on the car, although at least one vacuum line is disconnected.

The motor has been rebuild with 1971 closed-chamber quench heads.  I forgot 
to note if the blue-painted intake manifold is original, but an economy Holley 
carburetor is mounted atop a spacer, which may be an adapter to allow the 
squarebore Holley to work atop a stock spreadbore intake.  De Tomaso valve covers 
are fitted, and the air cleaner has been painted with a matching black crinkle 
finish.  A heavy-duty A/C condensor has been installed, but the A/C system isn
’t hooked up yet.

An electric antenna is mounted to the gas tank shield, and very discreetly 
pokes up through the engine screen when the radio is turned on.

Bill works on his race car and thus knows his way around, mechanically.  He 
pulled the gearbox and safety-wired the ring and pinion, at the same time he 
installed a Centerforce clutch.

After a quick walk-around, I hopped in and turned the key--the car started 
right up.  The fans have been rewired; my memory is a bit fuzzy on this detail 
(since I have looked at four Pantera fan wiring schemes in the past five days), 
but I believe that one is wired to the key and the other is controlled by a 
switch on the dash.  You’ll have to clarify that with Bill, however.

The exhaust note is civilized.  The stock exhaust has been replaced with some 
sort of headers, and a custom exhaust featuring short Cadillac STS mufflers 
and a crossover tube.  It sounds terrific.

I backed the car out of the driveway, and set off down the road.  The car 
drives quite nicely, with no untoward rattles for the most part.  The previous 
owner installed polyurethane A-arm and swaybar bushings with no lubrication 
(?????) and therefore the car makes a substantial racket in that regard.  Going 
over some bumpy sections I could hear the distinctive clunk of a worn-out 
steering rack, which isn’t surprising considering the 54K miles on the car.  (more 
on that in a minute too).  The ride is smooth and controlled, thanks to 
aftermarket adjustable shocks (probably Aldans from Hall Pantera).

The gearbox has the wrong angle drive, and as a result the speedometer reads 
about 20% high.

The brakes felt decent, although nothing to write home about--basically stock 
Pantera-spec.  The car pulled very slightly to the right, which might be down 
to tire pressure and/or wheel alignment.  The car hasn’t been driven much at 
all since he bought it.

Shifting action felt fine while underway, initially.  Later on, I got a 
crunch when shifting into 2nd gear, although my foot was all the way to the floor 
on the clutch pedal.  Bill said that the clutch slave cylinder had been leaking 
slightly, which would probably account for it.

In fact, when we got back to the house, while stationary, I wasn’t able to 
select either first or reverse, getting crunching all over the place.  Bill 
hopped into the seat, and immediately got all six gears with no problems.  So 
perhaps there is some technique involved (or perhaps I’m an idiot), but I would 
look hard at the clutch slave cylinder and almost assuredly replace it.

Due to the high compression, the car has a slight detonation problem when the 
engine is lugged at lower rpm in higher gears.  Bill recently retarded the 
timing 3 degrees (it has an MSD ignition), but it’s apparently too far 
advanced.  I know when I installed my MSD ignition, the stock curve was all wrong for a 
street motor, with far too much initial advance, so a recurve of the 
distributor would probably be a good idea.  The motor ran at reasonable temperatures 
and oil pressures the entire time.

We drove to a scenic area of his estate to shoot photos, knowing that, due to 
a weak stock starter, the car would not start again right away.  The starter 
is well past its prime, and the car has to sit for about ten minutes and cool 
off before it has the oomph to turn it over.  Eventually we were able to drive 
back to the garage.

Jacking up the car, I was happy to see that the chassis rails are in perfect 
order (i.e. no indication of any accident damage).  There are drain holes 
drilled in the chassis tubes, and no evidence of any rust.  Interestingly, the 
lower A-arms have been replaced with aftermarket chromemoly A-arms that are 
totally unique; I’ve never seen them before and have no idea who makes them.  They 
appear to be quite stout however, so I would view this as a nice feature.

While the car was in the air, I tested the rear axles for axle/bearing wear.  
The passenger side axle is totally destroyed, while the driver’s side is 
rock-solid.  Bill’s eyes got as big as saucers when he saw the movement on the 
driver’s side; he is very meticulous about his race car and checks the bearings 
before and after every race, but had no idea that Pantera axles wear out in 
this fashion.  Although the car can be driven, the axle needs to be attended to 
very soon.

The steering rack bushing was blown out in the traditional fashion, as I 
suspected.

So, here is the bottom line:

Pros:

Fantastic red paint, with perfect body lines everywhere
Very nice interior
Recaro seats
Cools well
Good oil pressure
Drives nicely
Appears to be totally devoid of rust
Bare metal restoration, completed five years ago, with only about 6000 miles 
since
10-inch Campy wheels, new-ish tires
Safety-wired ZF gearbox
Heavy-duty A/C components
Solid motor runs well, no smoke etc. (detonation needs to be addressed with 
distributor tuning)
Aldan shocks
Great radiator, new hoses

Cons:

Needs steering rack rebuild ($35 bushing)
Right stub axle is wiped out (figure about $550 for new axle, axle nut and 
bearings)
Stock starter is totally inadequate for a high-compression motor ($250)
A/C needs to be hooked up and charged ($500?)
Clutch slave cylinder needs to be replaced ($100-200)
Hokey two-ignition-switch operation ($150 for electric ‘guts’ for stock 
switch)
Blown-out steering column bushing ($16)
Missing headrests?
Missing rheostat/inop instrument lights (unknown $$$ and time to sort out; 
could be simple)

Basically, this is an excellent Pantera, one needing only two or three days 
of concerted work to be a virtually perfect car that can be driven every day.  
If it were a perfect car with a clean title, I’d call it close to a $50,000 
car in today’s market (remember prices seem to be higher here in California).  
Bill is asking $45,000, which is a fair asking price in my view, although I 
would factor in the cost of the needed repairs and negotiate accordingly.

Now, a bit of discussion about the fact that it is on a salvage title.  There 
are a lot of people who reflexivly recoil away from any car on a salvage 
title; normally people associate that with a car that has been comprehensively 
smashed and turned into a pretzel (or more recently, flooded out by Hurricane 
Katrina). 

But it is very easy for a perfectly good car with minimal damage to get 
totalled out.  If the owner is a Cheap Charlie and understates the value of his car 
when buying insurance, when the car is involved in an incident, costs can 
very quickly mount and reach the typical 80% value threshold whereupon the 
insurance company totals the car.  So there are some very nice, lightly damaged cars 
out there that are totalled out. 

I can understand being wary of a salvage title car; if the history of the car 
is unknown, i.e. it's a Hurricane Katrina victim, that's one thing.  But the 
full history of this car is known.  The guy who bought the wreck then spent 
seven YEARS doing a full, ground-up, bare-metal restoration, and there is 
photographic evidence to support that, and he is still around and can be questioned 
in detail.  When you see a car in bare metal stripped to the last screw, that 
has then been painstakingly put back together, what difference does it make 
that at some point in its life some clerk at Allstate wrote it off?

There are lots and LOTS of Panteras out there with non-salvage titles that 
are total pieces of crap.  You want a piece of paper,  you buy a piece of 
paper.  You want a good CAR, you buy a good CAR and forget about the stupid paper.

This is coming from a guy who bought a piece of paper!  Mine was the worst 
Pantera in the world, badly wrecked, badly repaired and rusted to shreds was 
associated with it, and it took 17 years and untold thousands of dollars for me 
to get it mostly restored.  But it wasn't on a salvage title.  This car is a 
million times better than my car was when I bought it, paper notwithstanding.

Finally, I note that since the instruments have been replaced, there is no 
way of knowing the true mileage on the car.  (And in fact, that might account 
for the fact that the speedometer reads so high, as the previous gauge may have 
been set up for a different angle drive ratio).  But the only important thing 
is the mileage since the restoration, which is about 6000 or so.  (Bill keeps 
detailed records, has all the manuals etc. and so forth)

Bill can be reached at (530) 432-1991; his wife’s e-mail is Joey at netshel.net.

Photos of the car can be found here:

http://members.aol.com/MikeLDrew/BillJordanPantera.zip

Clicking that link will download a 7.4 mb folder of photos to your hard 
drive.

Cheers!

Mike


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