[DeTomaso] The Pantera Wedding

[Garth Rodericks]

 << His first concern was that his son had never driven a manual transmission car much less the Pantera. >>

 << He had never driven the car on the street, only in the parking lot when he learned to drive a stick. >>>

And THIS is why I let my kids drive my cars.  My 17 year old daughter wanted to learn to do a burnout earlier this year, so we took the 66 Mustang out to a large deserted parking lot with no lamp posts or planter boxes one evening where I taught her the correct technique to do a burnout (never side-step the clutch).  I demonstrated a couple of times and then put her behind the wheel. She stalled it the first couple of tries, but then got it!  I let her do 5-6 nice burnouts, then had her do some donuts to see how the car felt when it slid.  She drove home with an ear to ear perma-grin!

The day I got the Pantera back on the road  few weeks ago, after it's 5 year engine rebuild, she wanted to go for a ride and was 'joking' that she wanted to drive it.  So, I took her for a ride and  found a nice industrial park area with little or no traffic, wide streets, and not too far from home, and let her drive. I insisted she do a couple of quick take-off's and stops, as well as stab the gas while we're rolling along in 2nd gear, to get a good sense of how the car feels and responds and how different it is from our other cars.  Another perma-grin!  And texts to her brother and sister who are away at college that she got to drive the Pantera first!

It's our responsibility to share these great cars and our automotive passion with the next generation. Otherwise, who will we pass the torch to?

Cheers!
Garth
#4033

-----Original Message----- 
Tom Shinrock tmshinro at aol.com 
Thu Sep 19 13:02:34 MST 2013
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I've got a similar story. First an aside.....When my two sons were learning to drive I taught them to drive a manual transmission with the Pantera.   I figured that the torque would make it easier because it would be hard to kill the engine if the clutch was released a little too quickly.   We went out to a large parking lot where I worked on a Sunday and within 30 minutes they had it down.  Now on to the story. Back in 2002 my oldest asked if he could take the Pantera on this senior prom date.   I was initially reluctant.  I told him that he would be adding to the stress level driving the car and it would put a damper on his prom experience.   He had never driven the car on the street, only in the parking lot when he learned to drive a stick.  He reassured me that he could handle it and it wouldn't ruin his date, so I said yes. I drove the car to the high school for the grand march and after it was over he and his date took the car and drove it to our
 house where they were meeting up with some other seniors for pictures before they drove to a restaurant for dinner prior to the dance.   You should have seen his face when he drove away in the car from the high school.   He made it back home just fine and all the mandatory pictures were taken.  When they were getting ready to leave for the restaurant, which was all the way on the other side of town, I told him to take the highway that goes around the city so he wouldn't have to drive in stop and go traffic.   All the kids pile into their cars and my son leads the way in the Pantera.  I watched the Pantera disappear in the distance and thought about how neat my son was feeling. I actually was attending a father-daughter campout about 30 miles away that weekend and came into town for the picture session and to see him off.   After he left I got in the car and headed back to the campground.   I was about half way to the campground when my son calls me and
 said the Pantera broke.  He said he came to the second stop sign and the car wouldn't move when he let out the clutch.   He said it was parked on the side of the highway.   I told him to catch a ride with one of the other cars so he could make his dinner reservation and I would turn around look at the car.   He was understandably upset.   I told him to not let it ruin his evening and have a good time. He had only driven less than 5 miles from the house.  I found the car on the left shoulder of the divided highway.  I went to start it and it fired right up.  I put the car in gear and let out the clutch and nothing.  It was as if there was no clutch.   Luckily it was very close to home.   I went home and got his mom and I took our van back with a tow strap.   The car was very close to a cross over so it was a simple matter of hooking up the tow strap and pulling it across the highway and back home.   Since the highway was divided four lane I didn't have
 to worry about holding up traffic and we only had to go on the highway for about a mile before we turned off to go on the back county road to our house.   Not a bad tow at all. After I got the car home I noticed that the transaxle inspection hole cover was missing.  I went back to the intersection to see if I could find it and I was looking for the telltale black stripes on the road from a burnout that blew the clutch.  I didn't see any stripes and I couldn't find the cover either.   I went back to the campground and finished up the weekend with me daughter. When I got back home on Sunday evening I started the interrogation with me son.   I asked him if he had tried to get scratch by popping the clutch.  He said no..that the clutch just quick working after he pulled away from the stop sign.   I had my doubts about his story but had no evidence to disprove it.   I had the car shipped to Cory Gehling (about 200 miles) to have him fix it.   I explained
 what I thought had happened and that this was the orginal clutch that came with the car when I bought it 15 years prior.  Up to that point I had no clutch problems. When he looked into it he said that I had a rear main leak and the clutch fragments were soaked with oil.   He thought that the clutch had been getting oil on it from the leak and it finally decided to let go when my son was driving the car.   He suggested that my son's driving probably didn't have direct cause on the failure so just chalked it up to one of those things (although I still was suspicious).   I had him replace the seal and put in a new clutch and everything was good after that. Seeing my son's expression as he drove away in the Pantera was worth the pain and expense after the years past.  It was a once in a lifetime experience for him....and his date was duly impressed! Tom
5186 p.s.   My second son was a year behind his brother and when his prom came around he asked me if he could drive the Pantera.   I told him that he didn't need the kind of stress his brother went through the prior year and he would probably be better of if he didn't.   I offered him the use of my Porsche 944T if he could show me that he could drive it.  Remember that he learned to drive a manual with the Pantera and all its grunt two years prior and hadn't driven a stick since.  The 944T has nowhere near the torque off of idle and the clutch is trickier than the Pantera.   We went out to test drive the Porsche and he repeatedly killed the car when he took off from a stop.   After about 30 minutes it wasn't getting much better so I told him to do himself a favor and just take his mom's car and have good time. -----Original Message-----
From: Charles Engles <cengles at cox.net>
To: detomaso <detomaso at poca.com>
Sent: Wed, Sep 18, 2013 8:41 pm
Subject: [DeTomaso] The Pantera Wedding 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