The De Tomaso Pantera. True they were not quite full blooded Italian sports car thoroughbreds but yet the Ford-engined Pantera and Maugista were both very exotic and very very fast and nimble.

It was the fashion “in the Italy” of the 1960’s for small scale car manufacturers to aspire to join the exclusive auto club founded by Masterati and Ferrari. It might be said that Lamborghini tried and succeeded, that Izo tried and went on to continue to try and persist in their efforts. De Tomaso’s principal claim club membership lies in the Pantera – of whom a good number of well cared for vintage sports cars are still in auto enthusiasts and collectors collections yet to this day. Indeed among the best infamous example of this classic lineage of vehicle was the one associated with the fatal auto accident of the Canadian hockey player “Tim Horton” whose name went on to inspire the dynastic Canadian donut chain that still carries his namesake. The Pantera was a more than formidable mid-engined GT car which had been in production with remarkably few changes in its production line. It was a well lay out, designed and engineered auto classic from its beginnings. Indeed it achieved that feat despite any number of financial and even political complications that surrounded the auto line.

The Pantera finds its roots in an earlier Tomaso design “the Mangusta”. This was de Tomaso’s first attempt at building a car to a formula which had seemed attractive at the time (in 1965), that of adopting the same mid engined layout which had so quickly swept the board in Grand Prix racing and applying it to a two-seat GT car, but avoiding the risk and expense of building a suitably high powered engine by buying in one of the American “muscle-car” V8s.

The idea looked promising on paper, the more so because De Tomaso already had a useful starting point in the form of the Vallelunga , a mid engined car with a strong backbone chassis , a bored-out Ford Cortina GT engine and a suspension that borrowed greatly from racing car practice and expertise. The same racing practice was adopted for the new GT model, it was simply a matter (or so it must have seemed at the time), of scaling the thing up and installing a much bigger and heftier engine. The actual choice of the engine and power plant was almost inevitable. De Tomaso had admired the Shelby Cobra to the extent that it had triggered his original thinking about how much better a car he could build by combining the kind of power and torque with an advanced mid-engined chassis.

Thus the engine which went into the Mangusta was sure enough the Ford 289 cubic inch / 4.7 liter V8. De Tomaso had his mid-engined advance on the Cobra and his delight was reflected in his very choice of name for his new model and namesake – for Mangusta in Italian translates into “Mongoose” and as everyone knows who remembers the tales of Rikki-Tikki Tavi, the mongoose eats cobras for breakfast.

The rest as they say was history and an auto classic in the making.

Tom I Stables
Autowest Winnipeg Auto
Service Shop
Lower Shop Rates in Wpg
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2150 McPhillips St. Winnipeg, MB R2V 3C8
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Tom I Stables
Autowest Winnipeg Auto Service Shop
http://autowestwinnipegautoserviceshop.com/
Lower Shop Rates in Wpg Manitoba – expert service new modern facilities
2150 McPhillips St. Winnipeg, MB R2V 3C8
Auto Dealers Surrey http://autodealerssurrey.com/

Author Bio: Tom I Stables
Autowest Winnipeg Auto
Service Shop
Lower Shop Rates in Wpg
Manitoba – expert service new modern facilities – all car truck makes models

2150 McPhillips St. Winnipeg, MB R2V 3C8
Auto Dealers Surrey  BC Canada

Category: Automotive
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