[DeTomaso] We have lost another one…Wally Baldyga RIP

[Mike & Elizabeth]

Thanks Mike.  Sad to hear.  I watched the YouTube when it came out a while back and enjoyed it very much.
Mike Thomas
Panteras Northwest

-----Original Message-----
From: DeTomaso <detomaso-bounces at server.detomasolist.com> On Behalf Of MIKE DREW via DeTomaso
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 9:32 AM
To: De Tomaso Forum <detomaso at server.detomasolist.com>
Subject: [DeTomaso] We have lost another one…Wally Baldyga RIP

   All,

   I just got a call from Gary Archambault in Massachusetts. We have lost
   another key member of the community. Wally Baldyga was pretty much the
   epicenter of the Pantera community in the northeast. He was one of the
   founding members of PONE, the Pantera Owners of the NorthEast chapter
   of POCA.  Although his day job was as unglamorous as it gets (he owned
   a septic service  company), as a side hustle he worked on Panteras.

   When Ford got out of the Pantera game in the 1970s, famously the former
   Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman Gary Hall ran around and bought up the
   spare parts inventories of every Ford dealership in the went, and Hall
   Pantera was born. What few people know is that Wally did the same thing
   on the east coast. He lived on a spectacular farm in Windsor Locks, CT,
   near Hartford, with his home and some barns dating from before the
   revolution. He had additional barns built and they were all stuffed to
   bursting with NOS Pantera parts. He knew an awful lot about these cars,
   and he restored quite a few of them, under the aegis of his business he
   called De Tomaso Performance.

   Perhaps the most famous of them was the PONE express, a Group 4 race
   car built with all-volunteer labor among the various members of the
   club. Together they resurrected a car which had been completely burned
   in a garage fire, and turned it into one of the fastest Panteras in the
   world. It routinely exceeded 200 mph at Pocono raceway and was actively
   vintage raced by Gary Archambault for years.  It was featured on
   YouTube a couple of years ago when it was sold:

   maxresdefault.jpg
   [1]I Found the World's FASTEST Pantera!
   [2]youtu.be
   Wally had sold off all his other cars, and parts to Steve Wilkinson a
   few years ago.

   Wally's farm served as the epicenter for club social gatherings, and
   the joint Pantera/Shelby club BBQs he hosted each year saw people
   coming from all the adjoining states to gather together.

   He has been suffering from both colon and prostrate cancer for many
   years and finally succumbed yesterday.

   He will be forever missed....

   Mike
   Sent from my iPad

References

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   1. https://youtu.be/V21LekTaD58
   2. https://youtu.be/V21LekTaD58

   Hidden links:
   4. https://youtu.be/V21LekTaD58