[DeTomaso] Great afternoon....

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

I had every ambition of tearing into my Pantera front console this 
afternoon and rewiring the water temp gauge to try to get rid of the erratic 
indication I showed you yesterday.   But then my phone rang.

Years ago, I was driving my Cobra replica on base and a KC-10 flight 
engineer struck up a conversation with me.   While he admired the Cobra, when he 
found out I had a Pantera he went nuts.   That has been his favorite car 
since forever, etc. etc.   He asked if I would give him a ride, but I had to 
tell him that the car wasn't running at the moment.   He took my phone number 
and I told him to call me in a few months.

Years went by.   Today he was cleaning up and found that scrap of paper, 
and decided to give me a try.   Sure enough, I was home, the car was running, 
and my plans to work on it quickly went out the window.   When he got home 
from work, I drove over to his house and picked him up, and then took him for 
a nice drive out in the country.   We drove on the freeway, tiny 
second-gear back roads, and nice, sweeping two-lane highways--a little bit of 
everything, for about 45 minutes, talking about Panteras the whole time.

He's just getting ready to retire from the Air Force, and he got a 
good-paying job at one of the numerous oil refineries around here, so he's starting 
to feel financially secure.   If he wasn't hooked before this afternoon, 
he's totally hooked now!   I told him when he was ready, I'd help him find a 
Pantera of his own.   We're going to go look at one at Speciality Sales in a 
couple of weeks.

What a pleasant way to spend a nice summer afternoon!   Sure beats working 
on the car, anyway! :>)

Mike

P.S.   Sunday I had hooked up the "FAN" idiot light to the #2 fan relay, 
and it was interesting to see how much time that fan is NOT running.   With my 
standard Hall Pantera replacement radiator and Hall fans, the car runs 
rock-solid at 180 degrees whenever it's moving.   Even in traffic, the first fan 
is normally sufficient to keep it cool, and the second one only comes on 
after extended periods of sitting; the temp climbs to about 195, max.

Love it!