Reply to "Custom Pantera at PI Motorsports"

Pantera International is a car club founded in 1973 by Fred Matsumoto, June Tuey and John Chung. It is incorporated in the state of California, the corporate charter limits the activity of Pantera International to the activities of a car club. Eveline Blanchette ran Pantera International from 1975 to 1991, the Adlers ran the club from 1991 to 2006.

PI Motorsports is a retail auto repair and parts business founded in 1996 and co-owned by the Adlers and the Sackets. It is a completely separate business entity from the car club. Just as Mind Train (Fred Matsumoto's business) was a separate business entity from the car club.

PI Motorsports was founded near the time when Kjell Qvale bought out DeTomaso's interest in the joint project called the Bigua (i.e. the Qvale Mangusta). Mr. Qvale was threatening to sue people and businesses for the use of certain words associated with DeTomaso automobiles. This rattled Dave enough, that when they were naming the new auto repair business he felt there may be future legal problems in using the word Pantera in the name of a new business.

So the "PI" in PI Motorpsorts was intended to give the impression it stood for Pantera International, because Dave and Linda were the officers of Pantera International at the time PI Motorsports was founded. At that time they had no intentions of ever relinquishing control of the club, they hoped both businesses would remain within the control of their family for a long time. Of course that's not how things panned out.

The truth is "PI" is not an acronym, its not an abbreviation nor are they initials. The business' full name is simply PI Motorsports, and always has been. It has never been called Pantera International Motorsports, but the Adlers hoped everyone would make that assumption.

In 2006 the Adler's stepped down from their posts in the car club. Since then there has been no connection between Pantera International and PI Motorsports, except in the friendship and goodwill between the Adlers, the Sackets and my family.

-G