[DeTomaso] Fantastic Nor-Cal Pantera for sale

[Visit ProvaMo.com]

Listers,
I've added this car to the Cars for Sale page:  
http://www.provamo.com/Members/DeTomaso4Sale/DeTomasoForSale.asp
and included Mike's photos.

Bill Jordan,
If you send me some photos of the restoration, I'll add those also.
Chuck Melton
www.ProvaMo.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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