quote:Originally posted by Otis:
I have my doubts that the Marti will provide much. I like the reports for other Ford Products but they lack a lot of information for the Pantera. In Marti's defense his reports are only as good as what he could get from Ford and I think many will agree that the paper work especially regarding specifics between Ford and Detomaso are less than thorough or complete.
The Marti report will show if the car was a US sold car. It will show the dealer and the first sold date.
It will also show the serial number which will tell the unit number and the original build date.
Ford HAD ACCURATE records on that and by agreement with Marti, gave or sold those records to Marti. Those are Ford's records of US cars. Period. They are accurate.
Marti does not have Warranty service records on the US Panteras.
It will not, of course, show the "day two" modifications. The modifications on the Pantera under discussion are "day two" even if the "factory" did them.
There are no Marti reports on Euro sold cars. Only US cars sold through Ford.
A car that was sold new in the US is very unlikely to have been sent back to the factory for modifications.
If you think about it, the US cars and the Euro cars were actually two different car companies at the point of Ford involvement until the point that Ford abandons the project, sells the remaining cars on the assembly line in Italy to Detomaso for $1, and gives Detomaso the dollar to buy them.
At the time of US marketed Panteras, if one purchased a Pantera in Europe, you would not get a US bound car "pulled out of the line" by Detomaso. Those were Ford of the US property.
Euro Panteras were not assembled on the assembly line. The shells were delivered separately and assembled separately to the specs of which country they were going to and what the original buyer wanted added or deleted to the car.
Where their serial numbers fell into order with the US cars would only be shown in the Detomaso records, not the Ford US records.
Ford owned 80% of Detomaso, giving Detomaso 20% and all of the Euro market.
I would maintain that the Marti report is essential to determining all of this since it positively identifies a US car.
My opinion for what it is worth, which granted isn't very much, this is a modified "US" car being sold by someone who has no ability to determine the real facts and is singing a song that they think sounds right to a buyer.
So really the question to me is who is the nature of the buyer on Panteras now? Are they educated buyers or are they speculators who are hedging their bets?
There is no question that this information has been talked about here before and if one pays attention would have read this info here already. There really is no longer speculation about it being a US or Euro car if it has a Marti report for it.
Of course this forum is a loose association of many with no requirement to attend or pay attention. There often is so much accurately detailed information that one likely would miss it if they were causal observers that just dropped in occasionally "reading the headlines" and not the text, like skimming a newspaper for easy details.
I often need to go back at a later date to review what was posted and realize what I missed the first time through. Maybe missed even the second time as well? It sometimes seems to have gotten to the point that some of this information could be considered well beyond even a Master's degree but you might need a Master's in Panteras just to realize it now?
