[DeTomaso] "Memories"

Kirby Schrader kirby.schrader at gmail.com
Tue Oct 2 20:21:25 EDT 2012


Some of you have seen this before…. but here's a real oldie of a Pantera memory.
Back when the speed limit was still 55 and I was young and foolish.
Well, not young, but maybe still foolish….




'Traveling to Great Bend'

I was still overseas at the time, back in the US on vacation and had
arrived back from a wedding (drove the Pantera from Pantera Performance
(in Aurora back then) to New Jersey and back to Kansas. I had it up to 140mph
through Ohio on the way out which impressed a couple of folks so much
they followed me until I stopped for gas… just had to know what it was.

I had a house in Kansas at the time and it was a typical drive of three
hours to my brother's house. Kids and the 79 turbocharged Bronco were there.

I called my brother at 4:00pm and told him we were at the house and
leaving as soon as I hung up.'OK,' he said. 'We'll see you in about
three hours then.'

I told him I was going to set a new 'family speed record' from my house
to his and he replied, 'OK, if you say so!' Wife heard the conversation
and started complaining about speeding, etc. etc. etc.

I got on I-70 and headed west and as we went along, I increased my speed
gradually while the wife was reading her book. Through Junction City and
Salina, I was averaging around 115-120mph. No cops... Not a single
complaint out of the radar detector. Everything fine. She didn't even
notice! Either the Pantera is real stable or that was one good book!!!!

I exited onto a two lane road heading for my brother's house. Western
Kansas, no other cars in sight, clear summer day.... let's go a little
faster. I was doing 135 for about 17 miles and came over the top of a
hill. At the bottom were five cars. One right behind the other...
Strange.... Should know.... Why?

Zoomed past them all and found out.... Unmarked under-sheriff's car at
the front doing the regulation 55mph at the time. Damn! Wife asks what's
the problem. Just went by an unmarked cop car at 135!

'What are you going to do now?' she asked.

Pondering and looking back in the mirror and seeing an arm come out of
the window of the undersheriff's car pointing at me as I disappeared
over the next hill.... Guess he plans on nailing me....

One, we stop and he gives me hell and whatever else.... Not an option
really... Two, we keep going and hope he forgets the whole thing... not
likely. Three, keep going and hope.....

I took option three, put the foot down a little further and we got about another 24 miles when my radar
detector went nuts. Pulled in behind an old farmer doing about 50 in his
'66 Ford pickup and a couple of Kansas HiPos went by flying low....

Well, the under-sheriff behind us obviously called ahead... Sigh....

I got about another 6 miles behind the truck when all three of them came
up behind me. The first car was so close, all I saw was the grill in the
rear view mirror....

When I finally turned off on a side road to go to my brother's, the
lights finally came on and I pulled over. The first patrolman got out
and came up to the door and said, 'Shut it off. Get your driver's
license, insurance and title and get out of the car.'

Title? That's not required by law!

Get out of the car....

OK. I got out and he said, 'This doesn't look like a Pontiac! What is
it?'

Pontiac? Pontiac! Of course! The title had said a 1971 Pontiac on it
after I got the title in my name. The girl filling it out obviously
didn't know what a Pantera was, so I had filled in a correction and sent
it back in to the state. Explained all to the cop and he headed back for
his car to check. I started to follow him until he pulled his gun out
and said stay where I was.... Ulp! What the hell is the problem?

After awhile, he came back and said, 'OK, so it isn't a stolen car...
(Aha! Duh… Tags point at a '71 Pontiac and it sure doesn't look like one!)

'Now, what's your hurry?'

Hurry? No sir! I will admit it's kinda hard to drive this car at 55....
So I might have been doing... oh.... maybe 63 or so...

He pulled down his sunglasses a little, peered over them and said,
'Yeah, right... The old boy back there in the under-sheriff's car thinks
you were doing a little more than that!'

I don't think so I said.... All this time, the other patrolman was
keeping the sheriff in check. Seems he _really_ wanted to talk to me.
Almost needed a cage around him...

About then, five more local police from Great Bend drove up. Man! 8
police cars, lights flashing, rubber neckers gawking... I started
laughing. Couldn't help it! It was something out of a movie!

The patrolman was not amused, but since the under-sheriff didn't have
radar and couldn't clock me and the other two didn't get me thanks to
the help of my radar detector and the old farmer, he ended up letting me
go. No ticket, no warning... Just a stiff finger in my chest saying if I
wanted to drive fast in this here car I'd better find a race track in
future. Yes, sir! No problem, sir!

Drove into my brother's driveway at 6:15. He was impressed! And even
more so when I told him that I'd just spent 15 minutes outside of town
with 8 cop cars!

We all had a good laugh when I told the story.

Next year, I came back to see him and he had his own story. Seems every
time someone would get onto driving fast stories in a conversation in a
bar or restaurant locally, they'd start talking about this silver Ferrari/silver
Lamborghini/'name your favorite sports car here' doing 120mph outside of
town and getting stopped by a varying number of police.

My brother said he loved turning around, interrupting and telling them
it was his brother, it was a silver '71 Pantera, and it was 135 instead
of 120...… and there were 8 police cars.

I can come up with a few others…. 
Going to Pocono with John Taphorn and meeting Mike Trusty for the first time driving down the interstate…
Coming back from Pocono in a downpour in Louisiana.
Driving the Longchamp back from South Carolina.
And others…

FWIW,
Kirby


On Oct 2, 2012, at 1:29 PM, Dick Koch <arkoch at earthlink.net> wrote:

> My Pantera has been the catalyst for many fond memories developed during 
> my 38 years of ownership of 6831, some more unique than others.  
> Yesterday I posted on my Facebook page a unique event that came to mind 
> when reading an article in the Atlanta paper about Susan Ford Bales.
> 
> The purchase of my Pantera was the catalyst for this unique event that 
> happened the week I bought my Pantera in 1974.  If interested, one can 
> read the post at:
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=473204112719593&l=6556aba2b8
> 
> My point in bring this up, is to spur other folks to post their "unique" 
> experiences that resulted primarily due to their ownership of their 
> Pantera, unique experiences outside of car shows, tech sessions, and 
> such.  I believe there are many very interesting tales that others have 
> experienced that would be of interest to folks who post or lurk on the 
> forum.
> 
> Dick Koch - Atlanta
> 
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