[DeTomaso] Another blast from the past....

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

Reading old newsletters can be emotionally wrenching (reading about the 
demise, suffering and eventual death of far too many club members), but it can 
also be uplifting and fun.   Here's some great first-hand stories from an 
article in the Feb '99 PCNC newsletter, which originally was published in an 
Acura NSX club newsletter...

Mike

======


Tales From The Pantera Service Department
by Paul Nichols

The year was 1973, and I was 20 years old.   Like just about any 
post-adolescent male living in the greater Los Angeles area, I had cars in my blood.   
Two years earlier, I had purchased my first sports car: a 1967 Saab Sonett 
with a 3-cylinder, 2 stroke engine producing a whopping 60 horsepower.   I 
assembled the car from the ground up—I had no money and the only way I could 
afford a sports car was to pay $850 for someone else’ s basket case. 

As a result of this little re-assembly project, I decided that I wanted to 
work around cars—sports cars in particular.   So I applied for a job at the 
Lincoln-Mercury dealer in Long Beach, California, where, as fate would have 
it, the management had developed the largest Pantera-only 
sales-and-service-department in the country.   A whole building and five service bays were 
dedicated to Panteras, run by a service advisor who had previously run an 
aircraft shop and treated the cars like they were airplanes—to the absolute 
delight of Pantera owners. 

I landed a job doing the pre-delivery prep for many of the cars that the 
dealership sold.   This job also included cleaning out the cars that were 
traded in which meant that I got to play with LOTS of sports cars—not only 
Panteras but Porsches, Citroen-Maseratis and even the occasional Mangusta.   For 
a 20-year old kid, I thought I had the coolest job on earth. 

Here are a few real-life stories from the dark recesses of the Pantera 
service department.

GUESS HOW MANY TRANSMISSIONS IN THE PILE AND WIN A PRIZE

As I’m sure you’ re all aware, the early Dash-1 ZF 5-speed gearboxes were, 
to put it kindly, somewhat less than reliable.   Too much torque from that 
big V-8.   What you may not know is that early on nobody knew how to fix 
them.  If (when) they broke, you simply replaced them with a new one.   As a 
result we ended up with lots of broken gearboxes which no one had the heart to 
throw out because “someday we’ll find someone who can fix ‘em.”   
Eventually we created a pile in the corner which contained at least 100 useless 
gearboxes.   It was a mess.   The service manager, being the meticulous 
aircraft mechanic type, despised this lack of order and one day quietly had all 100 
of them hauled away to the dump.

YOU THINK YOUR PANTERA IS HOT STUFF?

The service bays at the dealership consisted of a corrugated metal roof 
supported by posts but were more-or-less structures that were open to the air.  
 This proved to be a good thing one sunny southern California afternoon.

A customer, who happened to be in the neighborhood at the time, pulled in 
to the service department complaining of   ‘smoke coming out from underneath 
the hood.’   Thinking that this was just another overheated Pantera, one of 
the mechanics casually started over towards the car.   He quickly saw that 
the smoke was indeed smoke—not steam—and, deciding that discretion was the 
better part of valor, chose not to open the deck lid.   The car burned to the 
ground.

Later, after the fire crews left, the mechanic who-shall-remain-nameless 
got on the service department PA system and said something like “Ladies and 
gentleman, welcome to Murphy Lincoln-Mercury, home of the hottest Panteras in 
town.”   We thought that was hysterical.   The service manager didn’t. 

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE ACTUALLY PAYING ME TO DO THIS, AND BY THE WAY, MY 
FRIENDS ALL HATE ME

The service manager was anal-retentive long before the term became part of 
everyday vernacular.   An example of this was the fact that every new 
Pantera was taken into the shop to be re-tuned and tweaked prior to delivery.   
After the cars went through an exhaustive pre-delivery inspection, I was 
instructed to take each car out and put 100 miles on it just to make sure 
everything was right.   My regular route included a ride down Pacific Coast Highway 
with the return trip including the twisty canyon road exiting Laguna Beach. 
  I may hold the record for the most Panteras driven by a single person!

FINDERS-KEEPERS

As I mentioned, part of my job was to clean out the trade-ins.   I found 
some very interesting items...

— A bag of Marijuana in the glovebox.   The car’s previous owner showed up 
the next day to ask me if he could get something out of his car that he’d 
forgotten.   The smirk on my face told him that he was too late.

— $65 in change that had fallen inside the door of a 911 because there was 
a small hole in the door pocket where the owner evidently threw his loose 
coins every time he got in.   Didn’t the guy eventually wonder why his change 
seemed to vaporize?

— A loaded 9mm handgun.   The car had been owned by a jewel dealer who 
routinely carried a weapon for obvious reasons.   I decided that keeping this 
item was probably not in my best interest and called the customer.

— An 8mm movie of the type usually screened at bachelor parties.   Two days 
later an announcement was made over the intercom that there was to be a “
service training film” shown at lunch time. 

20 BUCKS SAYS THIS GUY HAS A HEART ATTACK

Part of the pre-delivery prep was the installation of the worthless Ford 
radios that came with the cars.   This process included installation of the 
antenna, which required the drilling of a small pilot hole in the fender.   
Then a hole saw was used to create the 3/8” hole for the antenna.   After 
installing what must have been a hundred of these antennas, I knew exactly where 
the pilot hole had to go. 

Quite often the customers wanted to watch as their new car was prepped.   
Most of these people were very nice and were justifiably excited about 
getting their beautiful new Pantera.   I would always welcome them into the shop 
and share their enthusiasm.   But others were obnoxious and were convinced 
that they had to supervise me because I couldn’t possibly know what I was 
doing.   For them, I always had a special surprise.

The prescribed method of antenna installation was to carefully lay a paper 
template on the fender, then gently tap a small punch with a small hammer to 
create the pilot hole.   For the benefit of my ‘special’ guests, I would 
go to my toolbox, pull out what became known as “Hammerzilla”, (with a punch 
to match), walk to the proper spot on the fender and, not using the 
template, place “Punchzilla” on the fender and violently hit the punch with the 
hammer. 

Now Pantera owners, being the sort that they are, didn’t think this was 
nearly as much fun as I did.   They usually reacted by turning white and 
rushing either me or the service manager to demand that I be kept away from their 
new baby.   Incidentally, I never had to pay to have a fender repaired; I 
always got it right.

THANKS FOR THE RIDE BUT I’LL WALK FROM HERE

The sales manager, Lyle, had a favorite demonstration route for showing off 
the performance of the Pantera.   It consisted of a long, straight, lightly 
traveled piece of road followed by a very steep, very twisty run up Signal 
Hill in Long Beach.   One day, a customer came in and wanted to drive a 
Pantera.   Being the good salesman that he was, Lyle immediately got behind the 
wheel and took him up “The Hill.”   At the top, the customer asked if he 
could drive.   Again, being a good salesman, Lyle got out and started walking 
around to the passenger side of the car.   The ‘customer’ promptly hopped 
across the car into the driver’s seat and sped away, leaving Lyle standing on 
the top of Signal Hill with no car, no phone and no one around to help.   
After standing there half an hour, pondering how he could get back without 
any of us knowing what had happened, he concluded that it was hopeless and 
called me for a ride.   Neither the car, nor Lyle’s dignity, were ever 
recovered!

{Paul Nichols owns Cobalt Design Group, a graphic design firm in Atlanta.   
He is also the associate editor of NSX Driver, the newsletter for the NSX 
Club of America. }