[DeTomaso] The Pantera Wedding
Charles Engles
cengles at cox.net
Wed Sep 18 22:07:33 EDT 2013
Dear Mike,
ROTFL! Where is your well known sense of *adventure*??
Warmest regards, Chuck Engles
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Drew [mailto:MikeLDrew at aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 9:03 PM
To: Charles Engles
Cc: <detomaso at poca.com>
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] The Pantera Wedding
I'm so glad Lori and I decided to leave ours parked! :)
Mike
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 18, 2013, at 18:41, " Charles Engles" <cengles at cox.net> wrote:
> Dear Forum,
>
>
>
>
>
> The Pantera Wedding Story
>
>
>
> A man had a Pantera. A nice mild mannered and well regarded man had a
> Pantera. His son was engaged to be married. The fiancé had the idea for
> the departure from the church to be in her future father-in-law’s
> Italian sports car driven by her soon to be husband. She was
> enchanted with the idea. The son approached the father with the Big
> Plan. Dad voiced some lukewarm support, but was nonetheless very concerned.
>
>
>
> His first concern was that his son had never driven a manual
> transmission car much less the Pantera. He had never been interested.
> He didn’t care much about cars. His second concern was the little
> voice about his Pantera’s well known ability to obey Murphy’s Law.
>
>
>
> He brought his problem to me and I counseled him. I agreed that the
> Big Plan was a Bad Plan. We discussed other options that did not
> involve manual transmissions and that did include other automatic transmission sports cars.
> He remembered that he still had his mother’s classic Jaguar sedan in
> storage that could work well.
>
>
>
> I also pointed out that fitting a newly married bride in her elaborate
> wedding dress in the passenger seat of a Pantera might be difficult
> enough to dissuade the bride. That strategy was well taken.
>
>
>
> In preparation for the event, it was found that the Pantera needed a
> new battery. After it was installed it was found that the hood
> wouldn’t close and latch. No obvious cause was found, but removal of the latch spring
> permitted closure and latching. A small victory over Murphy.
>
>
>
> Optimism increased. The son practiced driving a manual in the Honda, but
> never in the Pantera. As the day drew closer, a test fitting of the
> bride-to-be in the Pantera, showed that she didn’t think that there
> would be a problem even with her wedding dress. Rats.
>
>
>
> On the day before the wedding, there had still been no Pantera
> practice for the groom. Finally, there was an intense session and a
> satisfactory, but not skillful performance was accomplished. He only
> needed to drive it three blocks on residential streets and didn’t even need to shift out of first.
> The Pantera was cleaned up. What could go wrong?
>
>
>
> Dad decided to get the Jaguar anyway. He went to the storage facility.
> Problem number one: four flat tires. Problem number two: the keys
> couldn’t be found at home nor anywhere hidden in the car. Anxiety was
> building.
>
>
>
> On the day of the wedding, the Pantera was strategically parked near
> its “stage entrance” with the windows cracked open in the summer heat. Dad had
> two sets of keys to prevent another Jaguar disaster.
>
>
>
> One hundred and sixty seven people attended the wedding. The ceremony
> moved along to the dramatic departure of the happy couple. People
> moved outside the church. Dad went out to start the Pantera and
> position it in front of the door for the bride and groom to drive away.
>
>
>
> Dad in his tuxedo walked over to his Pantera and put the key in the door to
> open it. It wouldn’t open. He checked that it is the right key. Further
> quick frustrating tries didn’t work. Nonchalantly, he quickly went to
> the passenger door. The same problem: unbelievably, the door key
> isn’t working to open the doors. The couple has appeared at the
> church door. Everyone is looking at Dad as the rice and confetti and streamers are being consumed.
> In short order the unexpected pause in the departure becomes more
> obvious as the flying potpourri does run out. One of the bride’s
> family members tries to help the increasingly upset Pantera owner. He
> proceeds to try to use the ignition key in the door lock producing
> some harsh words as Dad reclaimed his keys. Finally, a brain storm
> happened. Someone ran inside the church and retrieved a coat hanger.
> Dad proceeded to open the Pantera through the slightly open windows.
> With the Pantera finally open, it started immediately and the bride
> and groom took off a bit later than planned. They also left behind a lot of mixed feelings in Dad about the whole affair.
>
>
>
> The next phase of the celebration was to be downtown. The Pantera’s home
> garage was on the way to the reception. Dad picked up the Pantera three
> blocks away, which had wisely been left unlocked. It started up and
> he headed home as night was very quickly falling. A short distance into the
> trip, Murphy struck again. Dad was calmly driving along when he had the
> incredibly helpless feeling of watching his headlights spontaneously sink
> into the hood as darkness engulfed the front of the Pantera. No
> headlights. No taillights according to the chase vehicle behind him and no
> flashers. In a moment or two, they unexpectedly spontaneously came back
> up…..followed a few minutes later by another failure of the lighting system.
> This happened about ten times over the eight mile trip home.
>
>
>
> Finally, with Murphy’s Pantera safely stored back at home, Dad went on to
> the reception and reflected on the departure debacle. It seems that his
> first gut reaction was right about not wanting to use the Pantera in
> the wedding and he sure as hell wished that he been able to find the
> damn keys to the Jaguar.
>
>
>
> This is a true story.
>
>
>
>
>
> Respectfully yours, Chuck Engles
>
>
>
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