The Pantera Place
"Your de Tomaso Connection"

What People Say About The Pantera

The Magazines

  • "The benefits of a good mid-engined car like the Pantera becomes obvious when you start hounding it through the corners. Even compared with the absolute best of the conventionally laid-out cars, the speed which it is able to storm through bends is astounding."

Pantera by Ford
Worlds Fastest Sports Cars, 1971

  • "As you skim over the pavement in the Pantera you can’t help feeling smug. You hear the engine rumbling along from its station back by your shoulder blades – a mechanical arrangement even novitiate automotive visionaries will recognize as a little piece of tomorrow today. And the looks. Oh wow – like something that just rolled out of the Turin Show."

Road Test
Car and Driver, August 1971

  • "Shattering performance and spectacularly good looks are just two of the attributes which put the Pantera fairly and squarely in the "supercar" bracket"

Auto Test
A Successor For The Ford GT40 MK III?
Autocar, December 1972

  • "But as of now, at least one hard, tangible statement can be made: a sports car is mid-engined. All other configurations, however fast, are sports touring devices or classics best suited for concours d’elegance, brisk touring on nice days or conversion for SCCA races."

"What is definitely NOT debatable is the fact that the Pantera is truly desirable property, regardless of price, the most desirable property in its category marketed by a Detroit firm since the Cobra." 

Road Test
Mr. Ford’s Pantera
Motor Trend, May 1973

  • The 1973 Pantera, Sports Car Of The Year.   "It could easily qualify today as a prototype in any International Car Show.  It makes the current Corvette look as appallingly passé as a front engined Indy car."   

Sports Car of the Year
Road Test, May 1973

  • "Cars with performance that slams you back into the seat and sets your senses reeling are mostly only memories in these days of emission controls fundamental concerns about fuel consumption. Nonetheless our irrepressible Engineering Editor, Dennis Simanaitis, has witnessed the resurrection of a true muscle car. The de Tomaso Pantera is back"

Return of The Pantera
Road and Track, January 1981

  • "It really is sharp-looking machine, and quite nicely appointed inside. I like the gated ZF five speed gearbox, and the engine really delivers a tremendous amount of torque. It’s a real boy racer. The road handling is quite good and the brakes are superb"  

Sterling Moss
PM's Million Dollar Car Test.  The Pantera was the top rated car. 
Popular Mechanics, March 1981

  • "Fire up the Pantera GT5 Gp 3 and the ground shakes. Drive it down a crowded street and the conversations stop. This car is outrageous. A Lamborghini Countach S may be more outlandish, but for sheer aural and visual drama, the de Tomaso takes the prize."

Blue Meanie
Motor, October 1982

  • "But then the engine spins, catches and barks into life, the deep staccato of the classic cast iron V-8. The fat tires squeal and the tail moves to the right. Through the gears as the booming V-8 returns the listeners to the wonderful days of the real Can-Am, the real Trans-Am , the V-8 specials from when road racing was at airports, two generations of top fuel and funny car, the best misspent youth we ever enjoyed."

Road Test
Road and Track, June 1984

  • "This here ain’t no Little Bo-Peep car. It’s no breathless blue-blood bunny banger for tripping ever so daintily down the lane. This is a car for kicking ass."

Road Test
Car and Driver, August 1984

  • "I found the ignition key and lit off the big V-8. Instantly, I was transported back to the thrilling days of yesteryear, when the old Can-Am race series was rattling windows and shivering timbers from Riverside to Mont Tremblant. The noise level was astounding. Yet it was the character of the sound that made the strongest impression. Gutteral, throbbing, and insistent, the 5.7-liter Ford behind my right ear conjured images of sleek sports racers propelled by engines big enough to run the earth."

Road Test
Motor Trend, December 1984

  • "If there’s anything closer to a street-legal Group C racer than this, we’ve not driven it."

Road Test
Fast Lane, July 1985

  • "The de Tomaso Pantera is a star. I’ve never driven a car which has such an extraordinary effect on people. As you burble by, parents tear their children from toy shops windows to point the car out, motorist wind down their windows to shout compliments, schoolboys hoot with delight."

"On the open road, it's a bit like having the biggest, and toughest, kid in the playground as your devoted pal.  Nothing else you are liable to meet need worry you."

Road Test
Motor Sport, November 1985

  • "As the tiny blue, yellow and white speck became larger. The engine’s furious noise increased. And as the Pantera closed on our position, another sound became audible; a loud whooshing, like a thousand vacuum cleaners, the sound of air rapidly being forced out of the way of the speeding wedge. The engine’s deep note rose as it approached, then fell abruptly as the car streaked past, a pleasing example of the Doppler effect. As the car disappeared around the banking in a receding cacophony of engine growl and aerodynamic noise, I used my calculator to come up with the speed: a shade over 246ft/sec, or 168 mph. Pretty exciting stuff."

Dave and Linda Adler's Pantera, "Whiplsh"
Road and Track Special, 1989

  • The 50 Best in 50 Years, Fastest and Most Outrageous, The Pantera is number 32 on the list!

The 50 Best, Fastest and Most Outrageous
Motor Trend, 50th Anniversary, September 1999

  • The engine picks up strongly from low revs and flings you effortless up the road on a fat crest of torque.

Modena Times
EVO Magazine, March 2001 

  • Enthusiasts have long acknowledged that the Pantera was way ahead of its time, as was the work of its designer, Tom Tjaarda.  You can't get a more interesting mid-engine V-8 powered exotic for the money, with the exception of a Ferrari 308.  But if you buy the Ferrari, don't go choosing off a Pantera at the light. You'll be sorry.

De Tomaso Pantera, In Retrospective
Motor Trend, June 2001, Matt Stone

 

The Person on The Street

  • That's a Pantera isn't it!  Wow!  They are really fast aren't they?

  • Is that car some type of Lamorghini?

  • That's a Pantera!   When I was in High School my friends dad had one and we had some great times with that car. 

  • That's some type of Italian car isn't it? 

  • O-man a Pantera!   I had a sea green one that I sold to Bill King in Texas! 

  • That's a Pantera isn't it!  I haven't seen one for many years!   I really love the Pantera!

  • That's a Ferrari isn't it?

  • A driver while leaning out the window of his car.  That car is fantastic, It must of cost you $150,000 or more!

  • Your Pantera is really beautiful.   I grew up in Southern California and saw a lot of them around Signal Hill. 

  • I love your car!

  • Your Pantera is really outstanding!   I owned one a few years ago.  I'm really sorry that I ever sold it!   I loved that car!

  • That's got to be a really expensive car!

  • Man I love the sound of that car!

  • Mother to a small child.  Billy, look... that's a really special car! 

  • Wow!  Those tires are really, really big!

  • You're really tall!  How do you fit in that thing?

  • I bet that car kicks some A - - !

  • A guy leaning out of the window of his old pick-up truck behind me, waving his arms madly and yelling. Wow!  Wow! 

  • Those rigs have a big bad A - - Cleveland V8, right?

  • Wow!  The cam in that thing makes it have a pretty good thump!

  • Five speeds?  You're kidding?

  • Is that one of those new exotic Italian performance cars?

  • Where do you get the kit to make one of these things? (I hate that one)

  • That can't be a 1971 car!  No way, it's not that old!

  • Where is the engine?

  • A lot of room inside!  

  • You don't need to answer this.... but, how much does one of these things cost?  You know.... just a ball park price!

  • Nice elderly woman at car show, " I never knew they made such a sexy car in the 70’s".

  • At a car show for 1973 cars and older only, at the entry point, "Wow!  That car is way to new to get in here"!!.