September 2, 2000
In 1988 Tony Fasola stopped by Hall Pantera and saw a nice white 1973 L Pantera #5972 that one of Hall’s customers had in the shop. It turned out the car was for sale and 1989 Tony bought the car and had Gary remove the twin turbos and return the car back to a standard induction system. The car was shipped from Hall Pantera to Tony’s home in Marietta, Georgia.
Tony drove the car for a couple years and in November of 1990 decided to completely restore the car. In December of 1990 the car was sent out for the body work to be started with the repair of some small corrosion problems and new paint. All of the undercoat was removed from all areas of the car. The body and paint work was completed in February of 1994. That month Tony got married and then started a family! The family came first and the Pantera project lingered.
I met Tony in 1998 and was really impressed with his car and hoped he would complete the project. In September of 1999 Tony saw another exotic car and was thinking about buying it when it really hit him that he should just focus back on the Pantera and complete the project.
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Tony and his Pantera
Views of the car showing the outstanding assembly job that Tony is doing. Tony has powder coated almost every part that he could remove. The door handle is a Hall Pantera part.
The suspension system is from Pantera Performance Wilwood system. Note the Pantera Performance camber lock.
Tony polished the motor mounts and installed the Pantera Performance cross member.
The ZF was service and polished by Pantera Performance.
Tony has all of the parts organized in neat bags and has the larger parts placed on shelves.
The Hall Pantera headers were ceramic coated on the inside and outside.
The original chrome half shafts were serviced.
The engine is at the rebuild shop and Tony expects to have the car completed and on the road by the end of December 2000. One very impressive thing that Tony has done during the restoration is replace most of the fasteners with new metric pieces. In the process Tony has become an expert on metric hardware
If you have questions for Tony he can be reached at tony.fasola@unistudios.com.