[DeTomaso] Fun in Modena....
Bill Lewis
lotus0005 at hotmail.com
Wed Oct 3 22:06:56 EDT 2012
Mike, (all the Profiles bruhaha aside - I think that we all have all the facts and have each formed our own opinion about the problem), I think that the Pantera world is very, very lucky & blessed to have you in the position that you are in, both in your burning interest in our car, and in your ability to be where the action is. I am glad that you send out all the emails that you do - I hope that someone is archiving them; and I am also glad that you are tech-savy with your camera. ----Bill Lewis
> From: MikeLDrew at aol.com
> Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 18:58:49 -0400
> To: detomaso at realbig.com
> Subject: [DeTomaso] Fun in Modena....
>
> Hi guys,
>
> We had a terrific day in Modena, starting with absolutely picture-perfect
> weather. We had a 10:00 a.m. appointment at RS Corse, which is only about
> 10 minutes from our hotel. We found it with no problem, and when we pulled
> up, Rafaele, Mirko and Santiago were there waiting for us.
>
> The cars of the De Tomaso museum are located in a showroom out front, while
> a large warehouse area is where the parts are stored (with more out back,
> sitting outside and rusting).
>
> There is also a service area, including a clean-ish room for engine
> building, and two lifts, both of which had customer Panteras on them.
>
> I'm way too beat to go into details--suffice it to say that it was
> incredible to see. They have moved the parts into real estate less than 1/3 of the
> previous warehouse size, and they did so in a hurry, with no sense of
> organization. So as badly as things were organized before, it's now worse by
> orders of magnitude. They have SO much stuff! So much stuff, in fact, that
> they really don't know what they have, or where what they have is. It's
> going to take years to catalog everything and get it sorted out.
>
> I did see a few things I never knew existed, including a three-liter De
> Tomaso V6! This was a Ford Capri block with a De Tomaso top end, with
> aluminum heads, overhead cams etc. I suspect this was the engine from the Pantera
> 270 or Pantera 290 (six-cylinder Pantera). They have two of them, one
> still in a packing crate.
>
> They have also been doing some organization of their paperwork. For years
> it was said that they only had records on the Euro market cars, but they
> have found all the shipping documentation for every car ever exported to the
> USA. I was able to get copies of the relevant pages for my car, one of 30
> that were shipped to Baltimore on September 5th, 1972. It lists all the
> chassis numbers, engine numbers, exterior and interior colors, as well as the
> shipping cost, and a breakdown of the costs of the goods that had been
> temporarily imported (engines, alternators, A/C compressors, and pulleys).
>
> What was even more fascinating was the handwritten documentation contained
> in a series of notebooks that belonged to former factory employees, dating
> back to the start of the company. Apparently, certain people working on the
> floor felt compelled to take notes on the cars they were working on, and
> later on they turned these notes over to De Tomaso. So by providing a VIN,
> Santiago was able to flip to this book or that, and learn various things.
> The late-model cars each have different engine tune levels, and the notes
> gave a clear breakdown of the parts that went into building each one.
>
> We broke for lunch, and drove to the Canalgrande hotel in the heart of
> Modena for a wonderful, and thankfully not to heavy lunch. Afterwards we
> returned, and basically stood around and BSed about cars for the rest of the day.
> Fred wasn't able to talk them out of the Mangusta prototype, but I shot
> tons of photos of every car there for the registry, and Fred bought a bunch
> of memorabelia, including dealer signs, models, shirts, etc. etc.
>
> We finally broke away at 8:00 p.m.; Santiago led us to one of his favorite
> restaurants, out in the fields outside of Modena. Luciano Pavarotti had a
> large farm, and liked to eat. So he got one of the top chefs in the
> country and built a restaurant for him in a converted stables on the farm, so that
> he could walk from his house to dinner each night. That restaurant is
> simply out of this world! If there is a menu, we didn't see it. Santiago
> just ordered one of every appetizer they had (!) which made for one hell of a
> start. We each then had a main course, and finally two three-level dessert
> carts tempted us and we gave in.
>
> It was an epic dinner, lasting three hours, made the more enjoyable by
> Santiago telling us the story of the rise and fall of the 'new' De Tomaso
> recently. (BTW the whole story of BMW buying the brand is total BS, he thinks).
>
> We finally said our goodbyes and now it's after midnight. I need to
> crash, because tomorrow we're going to the new Enzo Ferrari museum in the center
> of Modena:
>
> (http://www.museocasaenzoferrari.it/en/museo/)
>
> followed by the Stanguellini SpA museum:
>
> (www.stanguellini.it)
>
> then a two-hour drive to San Marino for the Maranello Rosso museum tour:
> (www.maranellorosso.com)
>
> then driving back to Modena, where I bail out and join John DeBoer and
> drive back to Milan for my flight the next morning.
>
> Too tired and it's too late to upload photos--I'll get them posted by the
> weekend.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Mike
>
> P.S. Interesting trivia fact--the prototype Mangusta doesn't have a
> Mangusta VIN; it just has a build tag with "001" on it....I didn't get to find
> out if the first production car was 8MA500 or 8MA502, but 8MA504 was the
> second car built according to the handwritten notes, so perhaps 502 was the first
> one? I'll find out soon....
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