[DeTomaso] Modena 2009?

MikeLDrew at aol.com MikeLDrew at aol.com
Sat Nov 24 15:13:59 EST 2007


Oh, I forgot to relate a funny story that Mats passed on to me.

Mats is a former racer and a very experienced road driver.   He has a 
Deauville and also a '73 L-model Pantera (which I believe was brought into England 
from the USA, and he bought it from there many years ago), which has some 
enormous amount of mileage on it, 200,000 miles or more?

He recently had a new monster 351C built which generated 440 hp and some 
ungodly amount of torque.   A short time ago, he was tasked with driving a 
photographer for a professional auto newsmagazine from his hotel to a racetrack, 
where the photographer was to shoot the cars.   He picked the photographer up in 
the Pantera, and the fellow gently inquired to see if the Pantera was a genuine 
sports car, or just a noisy American hot rod with a pointy nose.

Mats said, "Well, let's go and give it a try and you'll see."   Forgoing the 
motorways, he instead took an all-but-abandoned two-lane road through the 
dense Swedish forest.   He wrung the car out for all it was worth, and even pinned 
the 300 kph speedo at one point (which, I believe, works out to 186 mph).   
His Pantera is equipped with 205/50 and 275/55 tires, so it's got a bit of rake 
to it which makes it very stable at truly elevated speeds.

They got to the racetrack in record time of course, and the photographer got 
out of the car and stammered his thanks for the ride, and went off to do his 
thing.

Mats later got an angry call from the editor of the car magazine, who was 
furious because all the photographer's pictures that day were junk because his 
hands wouldn't stop shaking!   So Mats was forbidden from giving any more 
photographer rides like that. :>)

BTW Mats is about to turn 75....:>)

Mike


**************************************
Check out AOL's list of 2007's 
hottest products.

(http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001)



More information about the DeTomaso mailing list