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In a message dated 11/4/13 7 43 17, michaelsavga@gmail.com writes:<BR>
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Found this online.<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"><A HREF="http://auto.howstuffworks.com/detomaso-sports-cars2.htm"> http://auto.howstuffworks.com/detomaso-sports-cars2.htm</A></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"><BR>
Interesting, some of the same misinformation as usual.<BR>
Too bad they couldn't keep normal records. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2"><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">>>>What do you mean? Ford kept meticulous, completely anal records of every car they imported, and De Tomaso has a crude but comprehensive file on every car sold outside the Ford dealer network. I don't know if they have all the Vallelunga records, but they probably do. I've seen the Mangusta records with my own eyes (handwritten notes in a little steno book, one page for each car), as well as Pantera records (a manilla file folder for each non-US car).<BR>
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While nobody has ever taken the time to actually count the Euro cars, there's no indication any VINs were skipped. We know for a fact that #7380 was the last car imported by Ford (there is LOTS of documentation from Ford to attest that) and the first Pantera was either 1000 or 1001. The highest-number Ford-chassis car in the registry is 7504 (although there may be a few more after that which we don't know about). So, doing the math, that's at least 6504 'early' cars produced; from there it's easy to believe that 5639 of them came to the North American marketplace.<BR>
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There are then one or two outliers (I personally saw 8471 with my own eyes, along with correspondence from De Tomaso confirming that it was a custom-order car with that VIN), then the sequence starts again at 9000 and continues through at least 9562. So, more math indicates at least another 562 cars there.<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE CITE STYLE="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px" TYPE="CITE"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">I still think from first to last there were about 6,200 including all later incarnations and that about half survive. Can anybody add to this, disprove it with definitive proof?<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">>>>Way, WAY more than half the cars survive. Heck, there are almost 4000 Panteras in the registry, and we all know there are lots of cars either lurking hidden in garages, or owned by malcontents who refuse to share information about their cars.<BR>
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I think the survival rate exceeds 80-85%...but that's just me guessing.<BR>
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Mike<BR>
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P.S. The article dates from about 1984 or so....<BR>
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