Reply to "Popular Hot Rodding article on Pantera"

No one will ever completely understand the relationship between Ford and Detomaso.

For the era, the Cleveland was probably as high tech as you could get from an American manufacturer.

Looking at how it fits in the Pantera chassis, there are clues that it wasn't what was originally thought of for the car?

The problem with Chevy, at the time, is that they had their own cars to put their own engines in. They didn't want an internal competitor for the Corvette.

As a matter of fact Carroll Shelby went to Chevy first for the Cobra engines. They said no because of those reasons.

The key personality here was a fellow named Lee Iococca. He ok'd this Detomaso deal knowing how successful the Cobra program was, which he also ok'd.

The dual overhead cam engines seem to fit the nature of the car much better then the original Cleveland design. But consider the alternative. There were none in North American at the time.

The Cleveland engine was cheap and was on credit from Ford. Pretty good deal for Detomaso if you asked me?

Look at the production numbers. Without Ford, Detomasos car would have sold like the Mangusta did.

The dual overhead Chevy V8 in 90-91 Corvette would have been appropriate. The ZR1 ain't bad either.

This debate at what a Pantera is will go on forever.

What troubles me about the entire situation is the comments in previous press articles saying the car appears to others as a kind of a kit car, unable to define what it is, because of the modifications to it.

Swapping out the Ford for a Chevy or anything else for that matter just adds to this immage.

When you look at a '34 Ford street rod with a small block Chevy in it, it's still a '34 Ford, just not the one that Ford built. So the answer is that the tendency is for a Pantera to turn into a street rod. That ain't all bad. There isn't anything particularly attractive to keeping the car completely stock either. It can be so much better then that.