[DeTomaso] Pantera Si

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/18/13 13 41 10, jderyke at aol.com writes:


> Pantera 200s were made 1990-1994, so it'll be a while yet.... FWIW, the 
> term 'SI' is like the other common term 'Vette'- never used by the factories 
> involved, and 'SI' is not used by the lucky owners of the 37 known 
> examples. 
> 

>>>You've got it exactly backwards, Jack.   The Pantera 200 is a misnomer.  
 There was only one RHD Pantera Si originally built (Joe Nardo now owns a 
second car that was built as a LHD and converted to RHD after the fact).   
The RHD car went to Dick Puxty, owner of Emilia Concessionaires, the UK De 
Tomaso importer.   He was less than impressed with the bone stock 5-liter 
Mustang engine, so he had a hot-rod twin-turbo engine built.   The car was then 
road-tested by a UK magazine (long since gone out of business), and as Dick 
(falsely) claimed that the car could reach 200 mph, the title of the article 
was, "Pantera 200".

As that was the first English-language road test of a Pantera Si (albeit a 
heavily modified one), people in the USA falsely assumed this was the proper 
name of the car.   Despite years of trying to correct this mistake, some 
people can't seem to let go of it.

That car, BTW, was later sold to South Africa because nobody in the UK 
would buy it.   The twin-turbo installation was a bit of a bodge and it never 
really ran properly.   

A total of 41 Pantera Si models were built; one is retained by the De 
Tomaso family, and one was consumed in crash-testing and was later purchased by 
Roland Jaeckel.  So 39 have been sold to the public, one of which was 
converted to a race car by the ADA race team in England, ran Le Mans in '94, won 
the British Racing Driving Club championship in '95, and is now owned by 
Patrick Hals in Brussels.

Note that the original sales literature for the car does not refer to this 
model as anything other than "Pantera", as they hadn't really decided what 
to call it yet.   While various monikers such as Pantera 90 (the term used by 
Emilia Concessionaires for regular models, none of which they actually 
managed to sell), Nuevo Pantera etc. were bandied about, the term Pantera Si is 
what stuck, and is what De Tomaso calls the car today.

In fact, if you look on De Tomaso's own website, they show #9616, a Pantera 
Si that was for sale in Milan for quite some time, and call it by its 
proper name:

http://www.rscorse.com/car-for-sale/

Simon had actually purchased this car and paid for it, but the seller 
backed out of the deal and returned his money, and then later sold it for 
substantially more to another buyer.

I know quite a few owners of these cars, and every single one of them 
refers to his car as a Pantera Si.   I have been fortunate enough to drive one of 
Simon's cars (he had three at one point, but sold his targa model to a 
friend), and I can report that it is infinitely better to drive than any other 
Pantera.   The changes to the suspension and brakes really transform and 
modernize the car, although dynamically it feels very familiar, with the same 
interior as a GT5-S, more or less.

It really would be nice to have one in North America.   Fred Phillips made 
a run at #9616 in the hopes of bringing it to Calgary last year, but 
couldn't gain any traction with the seller....

Mike
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