1388 interesting

That poor baby is in tough shape and has the wrong deck lid for its vin.

Mike

The first assembly line car is supposed to be 1383, this one is only 6 numbers away. The full VIN is THPNLE01388 indicating the coach was assembled in April 1971.

It has single slot wheels, semi-square rear wheel houses, and a Ford aluminum intake manifold. All features of the push button cars.

I duuno how to download pics from eBay, anybody else?

-G

Has the 2-piece rear lights. Dash and seats are different from mine (have two center vents only). what's the hole in front of the passenger seat for btw..? Mufflers are of the lower/straight type already.

Hey guys remember at this stage of the game they were still handbuilt cars (like the Mangusta) and there could be differences from one to the other

Refresh our memory, when did Ford get involved? When was the via Emilia plant open? When did Vignale stop making the bodies? Are we sure the early cars actually got built in sequence? Were the early cars actually VINed as sequential or even numbers only (like the Mangusta, Deauville and Longchamp?)

Many questions?

Whoa! I need a tetanus shot just from looking at it!

To save a picture put your mouse anywhere on it and right click. When the menu pops up, click: 'Save Picture As...' Then choose a name (or use it's existing name) and location where you want it saved.

On some pictures (like in cardomain.com), you have to be dead in the center of the picture to be able to save it.

Michael

It looks as if the owner washed this Pantera with acid!

Michael

quote:

Originally posted by Kid:
Has the 2-piece rear lights. Dash and seats are different from mine (have two center vents only). what's the hole in front of the passenger seat for btw..? Mufflers are of the lower/straight type already.

The center vent is/was a factory mod (that was often done with other recall work) to improve HVAC airflow.

Mike

You can "save as" the entire page, and get access to the picture, or in FF (which is what I use) look at the "page info", and save the picture displayed only. Bad thing is that you'll have to repeat it for each individual picture.

One could also contact the seller, and friendly ask whether he/she is willing to share the pictures

Didn't know about the vent mod - thanks for pointing that out Mike

There were quite a few factory modifications that were installed on the 71 cars after they were sold. They had to track the owners down to install them so many cars were missed. Mine has quite a few of them. What is most odd is that some of them reinforce the suspension mounting points but then were never added to the later cars. As far as I can tell the later suspension mounts were never changed to make them stronger and they quit using the mount reinforcements that are on my car. The mod parts can be seen in the parts book. I’ve seen pictures of suspension mounts that were broken off the later cars and the mods would have prevented problem. Another de Tomaso mystery I guess.

Mike