[DeTomaso] Wheel question, attention Mike Drew OCWDD

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/25/10 20 30 38, rimov at charter.net writes:


> There is a 77 Euro GTS on ebay with 10 inch rear camps but they look 
> really peculiar. I suppose it could just be the pictures but were the later 10 
> inch camps different from earlier produced ones. I believe there are seven 
> to nine variants of the 7 and 8 inch camps but was wondering how many 10 
> inch variants there were.
> 
>>>I've identified three so far; the first style are very different from 
the later two styles.   I wouldn't guarantee that there weren't other 
sub-variants that I haven't positively analyzed yet.

As for the wheels on this car, I looked at them and they appear to be the 
first variation--nothing particularly unusual stands out to me.   Of course, 
the photos are very poor quality and I can barely make them out.
> 
> >I am sure Mr. Drew will chime in on this one as he can not resist the 
> urge to discuss the different variants of camps. Poor Mike suffers from such a 
> severe case of OCWDD ( obsessive Campanolo Wheel differentiation disorder)
> 
>>>True--but that's not the only disorder I suffer from.   I also have 
OCVDD, Obsessive Compulsive VIN Decoding Disorder.   I saw that the car was a 
'77 Euro GTS and immediately suspected that this was a Euro GTS Pantera once 
owned by motojournalist and one-time Motor Trend editor Mike Lamm.   I then 
found the VIN in the ad and that confirmed it.

Why I have this VIN memorized is beyond me.

Wait, hold on a second, I remember now.   I have it memorized because Mike 
gave me his Pantera shop manual many years later, when I helped him sell a 
yellow L-model through Claude Dubois to a French buyer.   In his shop manual, 
Mike had written down the full VIN of the car he owned at the time, 
THPNSU09033.

Mike is the one that taught me some odd details about Pantera VINs.   You 
all know that the 5th and 6th characters spell out the year and month of 
production, right?   The year data is pretty easy to understand; L is 1971, M is 
1972, N is 1973, O is skipped because it looks like zero, and P is 1974.   
By extrapolation, Q is 1975, R is 1976 and S is 1977, making the car in 
question a 1977 model.

The month character seems rather random at first, until you really study 
it.   For some unknown reason, De Tomaso chose to use a 16-character repeating 
cycle.   There is a typo in the Ford shop manual (Group 10, Vehicle 
Identification Codes) for April of 1971.   It shows the letter "S" when in fact it 
should be "E" (as confirmed in the other publications).

The 16-month repeating cycle is:   C K D E L Y S T J U M P B R A G.

By extrapolating from the last date in the book, PG (December 1974), and 
going forward as far as SU, you can deduce that #9033 was built in February, 
1977.

Howzat? :>)

BTW this was a fantastic car when he owned it, and he never should have 
sold it.   It has the later, GT5-style chassis (Peter Havlik will be able to 
tell us if it's an Embo-chassis car, or, what was the other interim chassis 
maker?   I can't remember at the moment, it's 1:00 a.m.)

I just remembered I have all Peter's Embo-bodied registry photos and looked 
at photos of #9033 when Michael Lamm owned it.   It was rather different 
then; it had L-model bumpers front and rear (the L-model front was added in 
order to bring it into the USA, I suspect), and it had different seats in it.  
 Whoever has owned it since then has improved it quite a bit, in my 
opinion.

And, going back to my OCWDD, I can see the 10-inch wheels more clearly in 
these photos, and they are most definitely first-generation wheels.   These 
wheels are marked by pronounced ribbing which extends all the way to the lip 
of the wheel, which the later 10-inch wheels didn't have.   These wheels 
were sand-cast (as were all the original 7 and 8-inch wheels), whereas the 
later 10-inch wheels were pressure-cast.

I really like this car.   To me, this is *exactly* what a Euro GTS Pantera 
should look like (except for the kluged-on external side marker lights, 
added at the same time as the L-model front bumper).   A couple of the interior 
rocker switches have been replaced with USA-spec versions.   The ad states 
59K miles when in fact it's 59K kilometers.   It has the flat Momo prototipo 
wheel (as opposed to the dished version found on the later Panteras i.e. 
GT5, GT5-S), fiberglass dash upholstered with alcantara and vinyl with a GTS 
clock on the passenger side, GTS seats (with reclining mechanism), red fog 
lamp under the back bumper on the left side (controlled, I believe, by a toggle 
switch under the dash to the left of the steering wheel).   It has a 
standard Pantera engine with the iron intake manifold; Mike Lamm installed a 
spacer and a cheap economy Holley 600 carburetor and an open air filter.

Very, very cool car. :>)

Mike