[DeTomaso] De Tomaso (Vignale Production) etc

[Pantdino]

My understanding of panelmaking comes from Ferraris, where the "Enzo era" cars up to and including the Dino and Daytona were built using wooden bucks.  Because it is impossible to make a perfectly smooth panel this way, body putty HAD to be applied over the surface to make it smooth. An original, unrestored Cobra I saw at Monterey last year had been made the same way-- under the cracking paint was clearly seen a layer of plastic putty over the entire panel.

So if the post-Ford panels were made without stamping machines they should also have this thin layer of putty, no?


-----Original Message-----
From: JDeRyke <JDeRyke at aol.com>
To: pantdino <pantdino at aol.com>
Cc: Detomaso <Detomaso at poca.com>
Sent: Sat, Jul 6, 2013 2:01 pm
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] De Tomaso (Vignale Production) etc


In a message dated 7/6/13 12:57:05 PM, pantdino at aol.com writes:


What I meant re the height of the driver may therefore determine the order of comfort between the 2 cars is that I assume a guy 5'7" is very comfortable in a Pantera and would appreciate not baking like a potato.  :-)



The super-low-floor Bizzarini 5300 'Strada' has about the same road clearance as a Mangusta, so that's a better comparison than a Pantera.


So all the post-Ford Panteras had ALL their panels beaten out over wooden bucks?  Or did they have a few thousand cars worth of extra fenders, doors, roofs, etc left over when Ford pulled the plug?
  


There were several small coachbuilders that made various Pantera model body & chassis after 1978- all have '9000'-series serial numbers. When DeTomaso took back his factory in late '74, there were maybe 150-200 unfinished body/chassis left, which he completed in leisurely fashion from '75 to about '78 while setting up small contracts with the coackbuilders. They all likely had their own methods but NONE had stamping machines. The '75-78s are indistinguishable from the '73-'74s except for having higher '7000-series' serial numbers, plus the factory built-Panteras-to-order with lots of Euro-only parts in them, such as adjustable-rake seats in leather, Gr-3 options, at least two removeable moon-roofs and other goodies Ford refused to even admit existed. The bump-steer adjustment shims came from these post-Ford cars as well as dropped battery boxes, removeable engine crossmembers and other such updates. 
Plus, DeTomaso never threw anything away he could sell, so the '75-78 'transition' cars likely have all sorts of left-over detail parts used to complete them, just like the last   55 Mangustas. Whether the various coachbuilders all had old men with mallets pounding out panels on tree stumps like the old days is unknown. You may be interested in rereading the Newsletter article of May '010 called "Factory Built". 

Forming panels over tubes or wire forms is properly termed "superleggera' body construction patented by Carrozeria Touring in 1936, usually in easy to form aluminum. There are no known steel-panel cars made this way. But a wire form can be used to transfer measurements or hang hand-formed steel panels for a fit-check, sort of like a full sized model. Cheers- J Deryke