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That's quite a tale. Mr Wyss has never exactly been known for his historical accuracy.

If he was a sportscaster he wouldn't be the play by play guy, more of the color commentator.

Personally I question his focus on the main element that he writes about.

He seems to be more intent at pointing out the shortcomings or more specifically emphasizing them? That seems to be his style and it does fill in voids in his lack of factual delivery I suppose?

I am not a fan of his.

Brock was asked about his involvement with the spine chassis and he said he had none.

At one time he was credited in the press as being it's designer and that is inaccurate.

Wyss isn't the only journalist that uses that philosophy. Perhaps that's where his style emanates from?
Sorry to contradict you, but there are a couple documents out there that say differently. The FoMoCo picture of Shelby badged Mangusta, and the one page flyer of yellow Mangusta with Shelby refences on the obverse. Ford did some marketing work with Mangusta and Shelby but that was not to be.

Also not quite sure what Brock claimed he wasn't involved but in the March '66 R&T he took credit for his body design work and blew his own whisle before DeT took all the credit. The spine frame FWIW is basically a stretched version of the Vallelunga.
It is true Brock was not involved with the Valelunga chassis or the conceptual creation of the spine frame, neither was he involved in the 70P chassis, he worked with Fantuzzi on the 70P coachwork; that was 1964. The chassis was 100% De Tomaso's design. That particular chassis used the engine & gearbox as stressed members, unlike the Mangusta. The Mangusta was designed in 1966, Brock wasn't around. The Mangusta mounts the engine & gearbox in a sub-frame like the Vallelunga.

-G
Last edited by George P
Hello Gentlemen
This is my first posting being only new to the forum, I was prompted by CJ who informed me of chatter on the Shelby Pantera.
My knowledge on the subject is as follows,
There were two Pantera's were part of Mopar project, one of which was fitted with a 340 "A" series engine complete with aluminium cylinder heads and a twin turbo set up with assistance from Gale Banks Engineering. Induction is a draw through system via a Holley Carb through to the two turbo chargers to a water cooled intercooler mounted onto the manifold. The intercooler water is fan cooled in what was the a/c condenser.
Pending a decision on the future of the project, which was eventually shelved, the car was put into storage whilst the mountain of corporate paperwork was being filed, in the mean time Jim Hensen had spotted and acquired the car, some parts were removed and the car was shipped to England just prior to the order for it to be scrapped. The car was reassembled in a workshop in East Anglia, which is where purely by chance I first came across and drove it in the early 90's. In fact I was racing a mangusta at Snetterton and was in search of parts.
fast forward several years, the car reappeared less its transmission and some induction parts, however it did come with an almighty pile of paperwork on its life journey, I bought the car and went about reassembling it, I now reside in New Zealand and and still have the car in my possession.
The other car was in fact crushed as per government of the day requirements.
During the rebuild phase I was put in contact with Mr Shelby, who made time for me at a Coys Historic festival during the mid 90's, he generously filled in the gaps.
The car is currently in storage due to business commitments, however having recently assisted CJ in tuning his freshly rebuilt Pantera, fantastic job mate,
the itch has begun to return!
If anyone else has more to add I would be grateful to hear your input.
Great forum (and site in general) keep up the good work.
Cheers
Paul
Good to hear that you have the car and it has survived.

I know that many of the Shelby "engineering" cars from the '60s have survived and are being restored to some point in time and others are already done.

The survivors were found largely in used car lots, many around the Detroit area. They were supposed to have been "sent to the crusher" but obviously they were not.

One notable car that has not surfaced and is feared crushed is what the press called "Little Red". This is the only '67 Shelby coupe.

It was built in LA and sent to Ford Advanced Engineering in Michigan, and never seen again.

Hopefully it is stashed away in someones garage and not crushed.

The reason I mentioned this is there is always hope that the Shelby #2 Pantera is still in existence too?

This is the first mention of TWO Shelby Panteras that I have heard of until now. I don't recall any of the press having picked up on that.

Thanks for posting.

Keep us all in mind if you find any pictures of your car that you can post here. I would love to see it.
quote:
Originally posted by Chris Wilson:
likewise i also have the PDF if anyone would like a copy, send me your email and i'll forwardit to you.

cheers cj


Hey Chris Joe here from the other side of the pond, could you send me the PDF? Please send to detomasopant@Gmail.com
I was in your country once I would love to go back, if I do I'll look you up, please look me up if you come to Florida thanks.
I had some limited involvement with the Shelby/Chrysler/Pantera project back in the mid-eighties. I owned a highly modified (for back then) 1972 Pantera,



and had a fairly extensive literature collection on Panteras and Mangustas. Somehow some Chrysler engineering guys got my name, and wanted to see me about borrowing most of the technical stuff I had on Panteras. One of the engineers came to my house in a Red "L" model Pantera with a large Chrysler Pentastar on the bumper where the DeTomaso Isis logo should have been. I told them I wanted a $1,000 deposit on my material, to ensure that I would get it back. They kept it a few weeks, made copies, and returned it to me.

A couple weeks later, I had a trip to California come up. I made a couple side trips on my California venture. I went to Willow Springs to catch up with Gary Hall who had promised me a ride in his Pantera - I arrived just in time to see him coast into the pits with a blown engine. I spent the rest of the day at Gary's place, helping him replace the engine. On another day, I took a ride down to Santa Fe Springs to see Shelby's operation. In another absolutely amazing coincidence, the Red "L" Pantera with the Pentastar on it arrived by truck from Detroit while I was there. After it was unloaded, I went over it with the guy who was showing me around. Maybe he was trying to throw me off track, but, the story he told me was that they planned to stuff a 361 ci Chrysler (truck) V8 in this car, to gauge public reaction to the car. He said the production model they were considering would have a turbo FOUR in it!

regards,

cobrajeff
Where was this in relation to Chrysler and Lamborghini? I presume it is before Iacooca was shown with the Diablo?
I lost track of the time line on these cars.

Belgium Barrys is one of the Shelby cars. There is a copy of the bill of sale floating around somewhere with Shelby on it.

There were at least two Shelby Panteras. Might have been three.

Knowing how tight CS was with the bucks, must have been Chrysler money on this project? Certainly sounds like it.

There was a picture of CS pictured with one of the cars then. I don't remember in regards to what.

Hall invited me out too. Never quite got there though.
The usual problem: the Mopar medium-block just didn't fit where a Ford did, having been originally engineered to fit. Poor Chrysler had the same difficulty 10 yrs earlier in trying to put ANY long, wide Mopar V-8 into Sunbeam Tigers. They'd bought Sunbeam, then found that due to U.S. legislation, they were on the hook for 5 year warranties for the 260 and 289 FORD smallblocks used in the Tigers. Chrysler eventually gave up trying with their smallest 273 V-8 and simply stopped selling the popular little roadsters. So I believe the statement about a turbo-4; that's about the only Chrysler that would have fit without major (expensive) engineering.
If you look at past history of Shelby, he (they) always were in batches of three, whether for race cars or for special projects.

Sounds like yours is one of three, which is what I suspect, and yours was never used for the project.

There was commentary that indicated the cars were sent to Amerisport for "legalization".

Kirk Evans, I'm sure would have the specifics on them since he is Amerisport.

Hopefully he will chime in on what he knows about them?
No Pentstars on them.

No one has mentioned that they own the white one yet.

One owner in New Zealand claims to have one right now and BelgiumBarry has documentation with his car that shows Shelby ownership.

We know there were at least two and now sounds like a third.

Kirk Evans had the cars shipped to him for US certification.

I don't remember him posting about them but at this point he could add quite a bit to the picture.

The magazine article being in black and white I think was showing a red car.

There were lots of red Panteras made.

I suppose much of the fun is doing detective work of something like this.

It's difficult to get information on Panteras and even more so on Mangustas.

I don't know if anyone has numbers on this but it would appear that only something like 1 or 2% of owners participate in places like this Forum which leaves the vast majority of cars as unknowns that occasionally get recognized by other Detomaso enthusiasts.

I would think that SAAC has got to be one of the most successful at finding the cars but consider the length of the time period involved and even so a large percentage of cars documented in the various registries have not been updated in 30 years by current owners.

It's a little like looking at distant stars in the sky.

A star that is 100 light years away could have exploded 99 years ago and we wouldn't know it yet since we are looking at light that was there 100 years ago.

Maybe those stars are just ancient history and don't exist any more?
Just saw this post---I am not on line that much with my family comments. I know of 6 Shelby Panteras because came through the AmeriSport shop. I rode in the red turb car in California. I took his driver for a ride in my twin turbo S and he took me for a ride in the 340 car. They had a 1/8 mile strip on side in Gardena I think. Lets say the 340 ride was an experience I will never forget.

I will post more details later---back to work.
Hi All, I was the owner of this vehicle and can fill in some of the blanks about the UK importation and engine build.. I lost the car due to the failings of Jim Gordon the "expert" from East Anglia who assembled it "badly" for me. He got into an argument with the garage owner where he was working due to non payment of storage fees etc. That person took the gearbox out and it took me a long time to get the remaining car back.. Paul I would be happy to tell you what I know if you want.. cheers all.
quote:
Originally posted by Dondy:
Hello Gentlemen
This is my first posting being only new to the forum, I was prompted by CJ who informed me of chatter on the Shelby Pantera.
My knowledge on the subject is as follows,
There were two Pantera's were part of Mopar project, one of which was fitted with a 340 "A" series engine complete with aluminium cylinder heads and a twin turbo set up with assistance from Gale Banks Engineering. Induction is a draw through system via a Holley Carb through to the two turbo chargers to a water cooled intercooler mounted onto the manifold. The intercooler water is fan cooled in what was the a/c condenser.
Pending a decision on the future of the project, which was eventually shelved, the car was put into storage whilst the mountain of corporate paperwork was being filed, in the mean time Jim Hensen had spotted and acquired the car, some parts were removed and the car was shipped to England just prior to the order for it to be scrapped. The car was reassembled in a workshop in East Anglia, which is where purely by chance I first came across and drove it in the early 90's. In fact I was racing a mangusta at Snetterton and was in search of parts.
fast forward several years, the car reappeared less its transmission and some induction parts, however it did come with an almighty pile of paperwork on its life journey, I bought the car and went about reassembling it, I now reside in New Zealand and and still have the car in my possession.
The other car was in fact crushed as per government of the day requirements.
During the rebuild phase I was put in contact with Mr Shelby, who made time for me at a Coys Historic festival during the mid 90's, he generously filled in the gaps.
The car is currently in storage due to business commitments, however having recently assisted CJ in tuning his freshly rebuilt Pantera, fantastic job mate,
the itch has begun to return!
If anyone else has more to add I would be grateful to hear your input.
Great forum (and site in general) keep up the good work.
Cheers
Paul
Just a quick note in case we dont connect...I bought the car from california just before it got crushed. It was without motor. I spent a LOT of time getting the original spec engine remade including the W2 aluminium heads, dual cenreforce clutch and the Gale Banks turbo set up from his powerboat range. The turbos intercooler used the aircon rad to circulate keep the water cool. The aircon was obviously non existant.. The legendary Herb Mcandless did all the work and sent the finished beauty to me in North Carolina where we were finishing the filming of a Ninja Turtle film. At that time I was Project Supervisor for Jim Hensons Creature Shop in London..
quote:
Originally posted by WP:
Hi All, I was the owner of this vehicle and can fill in some of the blanks about the UK importation and engine build.. I lost the car due to the failings of Jim Gordon the "expert" from East Anglia who assembled it "badly" for me. He got into an argument with the garage owner where he was working due to non payment of storage fees etc. That person took the gearbox out and it took me a long time to get the remaining car back.. Paul I would be happy to tell you what I know if you want.. cheers all.
quote:
Originally posted by Dondy:
Hello Gentlemen
This is my first posting being only new to the forum, I was prompted by CJ who informed me of chatter on the Shelby Pantera.
My knowledge on the subject is as follows,
There were two Pantera's were part of Mopar project, one of which was fitted with a 340 "A" series engine complete with aluminium cylinder heads and a twin turbo set up with assistance from Gale Banks Engineering. Induction is a draw through system via a Holley Carb through to the two turbo chargers to a water cooled intercooler mounted onto the manifold. The intercooler water is fan cooled in what was the a/c condenser.
Pending a decision on the future of the project, which was eventually shelved, the car was put into storage whilst the mountain of corporate paperwork was being filed, in the mean time Jim Hensen had spotted and acquired the car, some parts were removed and the car was shipped to England just prior to the order for it to be scrapped. The car was reassembled in a workshop in East Anglia, which is where purely by chance I first came across and drove it in the early 90's. In fact I was racing a mangusta at Snetterton and was in search of parts.
fast forward several years, the car reappeared less its transmission and some induction parts, however it did come with an almighty pile of paperwork on its life journey, I bought the car and went about reassembling it, I now reside in New Zealand and and still have the car in my possession.
The other car was in fact crushed as per government of the day requirements.
During the rebuild phase I was put in contact with Mr Shelby, who made time for me at a Coys Historic festival during the mid 90's, he generously filled in the gaps.
The car is currently in storage due to business commitments, however having recently assisted CJ in tuning his freshly rebuilt Pantera, fantastic job mate,
the itch has begun to return!
If anyone else has more to add I would be grateful to hear your input.
Great forum (and site in general) keep up the good work.
Cheers
Paul
Hey Kirk - Done!

Dondy - any chance of posting some photo's video's of your car?

Could you imagine being someone like Carroll / Tom who spend their lives "creating" things like Pantera's and all sorts of interesting cars - and being paid well for it as well as having their names kind of etched in to automotive history?

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