Specifications
Limited Production
STORY
De Tomaso had been building small-series specials in Modena for a decade when Alejandro de Tomaso struck the deal that defined the company: Ford would supply engines and, through Lincoln-Mercury, a US dealer network. The Pantera that resulted in 1971 put a Tom Tjaarda body over a pressed-steel monocoque, hung a Ford 351 Cleveland V8 behind the seats and drove through a ZF five-speed transaxle. It was a mid-engined exotic a Mustang dealer would service, and it undercut Ferrari and Lamborghini badly.
Quality problems and tightening US emissions rules ended the Ford import in 1975, but De Tomaso kept building the car in Modena for another eighteen years. The narrow early cars gave way in 1980 to the winged, glassfibre-flared GT5, then to the steel-arched GT5-S, and finally in 1990 to the 90 Si, a Marcello Gandini restyle of which only 41 were made. Roughly 7,260 Panteras were built in all, and the shape has outlived the arrangement that produced it.
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