Body parts Question

Well this sounds like the black Pantera that was hit on the drivers side. The Pantera body parts are very expensive and sometimes hard to find. It may be easier and financially smarter to part out a Pantera with this much damage and buy a car that is in better shape unless there is some emotional attachment to the car. I will try and post some links to vendors that may be able to help. But beware they may list parts on there web sites that are no longer available

http://www.panteraparts.com/main.html

http://www.panterasbywilkinson.com/

Yup, I am trying to what it is worth to me knowing that repairing this type of car is a big p.i.t.a. because parts are hard to find. I am assuming there is not a company such as a "speciality auto wrecker" that I could get used stuff off of?

Just about all the vendors have wrecked, used cars and shells they use for sourcing sheet metal parts.

Start phoning.

Larry

Larry Stock has at least three if not more body shells in varying states of impact/fire etc. sat in his place, I suggest he (pantera Parts Connection, Reno 1-800 DETOMASO) be one of the vendors you call.

PPC (Reno) is the one vendor I'm most familiar with being local to him and having been 'out the back' in his 'Pantera Wonderland' he calls a shop, but as Larry Finch said I'm sure all the vendors have such shells for 'scavenging' metal panels from. These are the closest you'll get to 'specialty auto wreckers'.

Julian

Thanks for the info, I got a call saying the black wreck is going back up for sale again http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/exotic-detomaso-pantera-...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I know that the only person that would be able to fix this car would have to be a bodyman, I fix write offs for other people and I am quite sure I would charge about/around $8/10,000+ parts/mat cnd to do the repairs from other simular cars have done if I was doing it for someone and I am quite sure most shops could NOT do it for that. So I just need to find out the cost of most parts to see if it is worth fixing, If I am going to end up putting $30/40 into it I would be better off just buying one for $30/35 and drive it home. The other thing is this car now will never be worth the same money as others like it that have not been crashed no matter how nice I fix it.

You can buy a nice car for less then it will cost to repair this car.
Unfortunately it is just a nice parts car now.

Actually, that would be a dandy car to turn into a dedicated race car. That way if the door seams ain't exactly so, who cares? You can focus on getting the frame straight and stiffening the chasis without worry about destroying its collecter value or whatever. Just keep adding frame stiffiners until it drives like you want it.

I suppose you are correct on this too DT. Now you just have to buy another Pantera to get the parts you need.

Well I phoned Larry and by the sounds of it, the basic parts I need could cost me about 10,000 not including who knows what misc parts I will need. So anyway heres another place I have found screwed up pricing regarding these cars, if the parts are worth this kind of coin (which IMO is bs), it would make more sence for guys wanting to sell there cars... just to part them out instead because the parts seem to be worth more than many a tun key car is??? LOL. example, ONE complete door could end up costing me $4 to 5000 grand. He wants $16,000 (which at this point is twice as much as it's worth) for the wreck and when you factor in the crazy price of parts, mat and my time. I would have many thousands of dollars into this thing when its done over what I could just buy one for. I see many many decent p cars selling for around $30,000... with upgrades!. I got to rethink all this now.

I also found out now that the car has higher miles on it now and was originaly red, has some filler in it from previous collision so this changes things too.

quote:

Originally posted by 393boss:
Well I phoned Larry and by the sounds of it, the basic parts I need could cost me about 10,000 not including who knows what misc parts I will need. So anyway heres another place I have found screwed up pricing regarding these cars, if the parts are worth this kind of coin (which IMO is bs), it would make more sence for guys wanting to sell there cars... just to part them out instead because the parts seem to be worth more than many a tun key car is??? LOL. example, ONE complete door could end up costing me $4 to 5000 grand. He wants $16,000 (which at this point is twice as much as it's worth) for the wreck and when you factor in the crazy price of parts, mat and my time. I would have many thousands of dollars into this thing when its done over what I could just buy one for. I see many many decent p cars selling for around $30,000... with upgrades!. I got to rethink all this now.

I also found out now that the car has higher miles on it now and was originaly red, has some filler in it from previous collision so this changes things too.

393, we weren't trying to be cruel when we tried to tell you all this.
With a Pantera these situations are more of an epiphany then anything else.
It is difficult to swallow the fact that the car is worth more in pieces, yes.
One has to learn these lessons on thier own.

quote:

Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
I suppose you are correct on this too DT. Now you just have to buy another Pantera to get the parts you need.

Just the structural ones. The others you could cobble out of fiberglass. Like maybe the doors. Then just cut some lexan for the windows. Maybe a little door in the window for them to hand you water during the pit stops, and hand you trophies for winning the race and stuff. Some of it you can cut sheet metal weld it in and pound into shape. With a fancy paint job and plenty of sponser stickers, no one will ever know.

Oh heck yeah 393. We figured out Panteras are a lousy investment. Any money you put into it, you will never see again. It is like a hobby that you do for enjoyment. If you are looking for a good way to make your money grow, this ain't it. If you are looking for a good time and don't care what it costs, this is the place.

I have a 1974 wreck with 2 good doors, quarter panels, rear deck lid, 2 engine compartment wheel houses, rear frame from the bulkhead back, rear tailight clip, rear fiberglass tub, 2 seats (one needs to be redone) All are virtually rust free. I am not splitting them up, selling the carcass as a whole. It has tentatively been sold but you can leave me you contact information in case that sale falls through.

quote:

Originally posted by 4NFORD:
I have a 1974 wreck with 2 good doors, quarter panels, rear deck lid, 2 engine compartment wheel houses, rear frame from the bulkhead back, rear tailight clip, rear fiberglass tub, 2 seats (one needs to be redone) All are virtually rust free. I am not splitting them up, selling the carcass as a whole. It has tentatively been sold but you can leave me you contact information in case that sale falls through.

How much for UPS to NY?

Well... the story of my life... always interested in things that are a lost cause money wise in the end. I got the same issue with my X1 Buells and other things/hobbys I got myself into. I did talk to another guy that I guess wheels/deals in pantera stuff and said he just sold a good complete body shell for $3500 which finaly sounds like a fair price. I guess you realy need to have conection to get the right price on parts for these cars. 4NFORD, it could realy help me out if you could tell me what your asking/selling price was for the parts you mentioned. It's funny to look at this canadian wreck as being worth more money as parts than buying it to repair... which after buying salvage cars for 30+ years makes no sence to me. I got a good frame machine but the other thing I am learning is this car is hit in one of the worst places it could be to repair (door pillar area), I guess this area is very important to the overall chassis strength of the car so I could have issues with repairing that area of the car anyway. Well I guess if I can't find parts at a decent price I should move on.

Yep. Land is a better investment. Buy land andlong term, you can't go wrong. Even crappy land is worth more than any car. All cars get old and fall apart and die. Land just sits there and gets more expensive. Buy up all of Canada you can and sooner or later you will be rich.

It's really too bad, if I could have got parts at a more realistic price I still would of tryed to get this car.

ANYWAY... I got another question regarding body parts...

Has anyone ever made repo fiberglass body parts???, our shop makes lots of custom one off and multiple fiberglass parts and it's really not that hard or that expensive to do. I am just thinking now if making glass hoods fenders doors quaters and anything else possible would be worth doing?, at $4000+ for a used door shell VS maybe $700cnd for a thick glass door or lets say thick glass fenders at $700cnd that will NEVER rust, is there a market?

There are several companies that make 'glass and carbon firber hoods and decks. I think you would find the demand low for doors and fenders. I have seen doors for $900 each in metal. Now a wide body kit might sell. Some times it just ain't worth fixing. I am suprized that Canadian Andrew did not accept the high bid of 14g. A nice body shell is 10 grand, add that to 14g and you have 24 thousand worth of parts to assemble and paint,,.....soooo.... you end up with a 32000$ Pantera... You ca buy one complete for that. Still

quote:

Originally posted by lastpushbutton:
There are several companies that make 'glass and carbon firber hoods and decks. I think you would find the demand low for doors and fenders. I have seen doors for $900 each in metal. Now a wide body kit might sell. Some times it just ain't worth fixing. I am suprized that Canadian Andrew did not accept the high bid of 14g. A nice body shell is 10 grand, add that to 14g and you have 24 thousand worth of parts to assemble and paint,,.....soooo.... you end up with a 32000$ Pantera... You ca buy one complete for that. Still

There was a company that was making a complete fiberglass Pantera kit to fit on a tube chassis.
I have never seen one in person.
The quote that I read in print was "parts are made as a direct replacement for original Pantera parts".
At the time I was interested in the fiberglass doors. One of the vendors such as PPC was handling them.
If you have ever delt with Dennis at PPC, he is not a guy that can quote specks out of his hat and pull written spec sheets out of a file for you.
It's always, yep I can get that for you, yep it will work, call me back later.
I never called him back later so I never got the door.
The problem with the rear decklid in fiberglass is that it warps pretty bad just sitting in the sun.
I don't know about the front but I would think that it would need steel reinforcing also not to.