Reply to "Here's a car for you!"

I find pictures like this fascinating. Mike Drew tells me that these photos were taken by Kirby Shrader, a Houston-area Pantera owner who has been living and working in Brunei for the past 7 years or so.

This car has full English spec. My car was built in the same month (October 73), and had a very similar spec (except for the GTS arches). As Derek says, all right hand drive cars had the single pod dash. DT never tooled up to injection mould the twin pod or single pod dash in RHD. They made them by hand from fibreglass. This included the centre console. As a result of this, RHD cars had to be trimmed in vinyl, Alcantara, or leather. Note the absence of the dash board clock. Not all GTS's got this. RHD cars also got adjustable seat backs. I do not understand why many of them, my car included, came originally with the Ralf Nader rear bumper?

Other interesting differences are the front indicator side lamp units. These are unique to English Panteras (not European) and originate from the Austin 1100 that dates from 1963. I can only assume it was due to UK type approval, and of coarse De Tomaso's Innocenti were making Austins under licence in Italy at that time.

You would think steel tubes that run along the bulkhead to actuate the servo and clutch would introduce a spongy feel to the pedal, but it doesn't. It is actually engineered very well.

Also notice the American side marker lights have been blanked off at the rear with a piece of body coloured sheet metal, and have an indicator repeater lamp in the front one.

Johnny