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Cuvee,

This is the first Pantera I have ever owned. I live in Los Angeles and I flew out to New Jersey to look at the car when it was for sale 5 months ago. A Pantera enthusiast named James Malin offered to inspect the car for me. James lives in NJ, just 20 min from the seller. James also owns an '88 GT5-S that he bought directly from Kirk Evans many years ago. After we inspected the car, I bought it and then we drove the car to James house. James has a beautiful house with a huge garage, he's got a lift, and a million tools. It's basically the ultimate setup for working on cars. While the car was in very good shape considering its age, it still had many tired and aging parts.

James and I decided to completely restore the car. The car has an expensive all aluminum fontana engine with a solid roller cam with heavy duty springs- but a bit too radical for the street. James is replacing the cam with a more mild hydraulic cam because I intend to drive this car often and I wanted something reliable. James is fuel injecting the engine, along with doing many other upgrades such as all new suspension and bushings, new shocks and coil overs, he adjusted the camber to eliminate tramlining, new clutch, all new hoses, powder coated many parts, new paint, smoothed out engine bay area of tack welds and such so engine bay will be painted body color, changed out some of the electrical wires that looked frayed, new stereo and speakers with bluetooth and NAV, installing radar detector with laser jammer,installed new quad headlights, new and upgraded A/C, changed out the carpet in front trunk and interior,installed dynamat material under carpet to keep out heat and reduce noise, new reapolstered GT5-S seats, reconditioned the dash, new burlwood. The list goes on.

As for the wheels, I wanted to get larger wheels than the stock 15" wheels. But I didn't want a wheel that looked too modern, given this car is nearly 25 yrs old. I wanted something vintage that suited the car. I decided I wanted to get GT-40 type wheels. There are a few vendors that reproduce many different styles of vintage wheels. Problem is the largest size they make is 17" for the GT40 style wheel. James made some calls and found someone who custom built the wheels for us. If you want to know more about the wheels contact James directly. James has a website Malinmotors.com James is a super guy who is extremely talented and he's very helpful.

Our plan is to keep the car as original looking as possible in the interior and exterior yet add the technological improvements of todays cars to make this GT5-S a driveable roadworthy and reliable machine that I can take out often and enjoy driving. The car should be done in a couple of months. It should look quite nice when it is finished.

David