[DeTomaso] Dear Pantera Diary...

[Art Stephens]

Those people like headlights don't they! Great Pictures Charlie.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles McCall" <charlesmccall at gmail.com>
To: <detomaso at realbig.com>
Cc: "'David Rodriguez'" <yuragagarin1961 at yahoo.es>
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2011 2:28 PM
Subject: [DeTomaso] Dear Pantera Diary...


> Had a great day today. Amaya and I crashed a party being hosted by the 
> Basque Country Renault Alpine club… We don’t have an Alpine, and are not 
> members of the club but a member invited us to come along, and since the 
> weather was perfect we did exactly that.
>
>
>
> We didn’t know what to expect as we knew exactly nobody, but when we 
> pulled into the parking lot at 9:30am, there was already a decent sized 
> group of people who welcomed us as though we were long-time friends. I don’t 
> ever remember feeling so welcome in a new group, which was really nice.
>
>
>
> We hung out for roughly 45 minutes, checking out the cars and getting to 
> know everyone. We took off for what would be a 4.5 hour drive through the 
> mountains.
>
>
>
> The cars were really neat. Good old fashioned carbs. Nothing electronic. 
> Very little muffling. Cars from back when cars were cars, and some of them 
> sounded really great.
>
>
>
> The roads were simply amazing. Probably roads meant for a small, light car 
> like the early Alpines, as the Pantera GT5-S occupied just about the 
> entire width for many of them. On the rare occasions when we ran into 
> oncoming traffic, we basically had to come to a complete stop and pull 
> onto the shoulder to allow us to pass. Cycling is a big-time sport in this 
> area, and since the weather was nice, the roads were covered with groups 
> of between 5 and 30 cyclists. This made for some exciting moments, as 
> there wasn’t really room for both cars and bikes at the same time. I don’t 
> know who was more surprised after coming around a curve and finding 
> ourselves face to face! The mountain roads were all 2nd or 3rd gear 
> curves, with more than one that could only be done in 1st. Switchback 
> after switchback, for hour after hour.
>
>
>
> I burned €115 worth of gas today ;-)
>
>
>
> The other odd thing was that after 4.5 hours of wrestling a widebody car 
> with no power steering around switchbacks, the palms of my hands were 
> actually sore!
>
>
>
> Some pictures of the day’s events may be found here:
>
>
>
> http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=29811
>
>
>
>
>
> Charles McCall
>
> 1985 DeTomaso Pantera GT5-S #9375
>
> "Raising Pantera Awareness Across Europe"
>
> <http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=2323> 
> http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=2323
>
>
>
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