Reply to "stress cracks?"

ALL Panteras settle the rear suspension, usually cracking the body next to the gas filler (on both sides). Wide tires seems to make this worse- the upper suspension collapses inward while the lower frame rails move outboard from cornering forces, popping spot-welds in the crossmembers that were supposed to hold things together. The stock spreader-bar is useless; I recommend one that has adjustment and, when mounted, jams fully into the welded pockets in the inner ender wells, thus transmitting side forces to a large area of the sheet metal. The bolts should only keep the bar from flying out under cornering, not attempt to transmit all the side-loads. To fix: get the body-putty out and have someone weld the cracks, then add sheet-steel reinforcement plates on top of the welded areas. Your car also needs some pro-attention from a Pantera-savvy shop to get the rear frame & suspension realigned. It sounds like it'll also benefit greatly from one of the vendors' stiffer kits. Yours seems to have more than the usual stress-cracks, none of which are cosmetic IMHO. Its probably had an "interesting" life...