Group 4 spindles

For true info on racing Pantera parts, get ahold of Les Gray the current POCA President. Les has been working on his real GT-4 for some 15 years and would certainly be an authority. ALL the suspension parts on the factory racers are quite different from the street cars. Les published photos of his front & rear suspensions, along with shots of the car in the pits at LeMans in '72 in the latest issue of the POCA News now in the mail, with more to come this month.

FWIW, there are three different known spindles for Panteras, depending on year of mfgr. Likely Wilkinson meant "available". For instance, Pushbuttons had removeable front axles and integral steering arms on the spindle forgings; production Panteras had the type we are all familiar with, and GT-5s had a stripped down type apparently made by another source. The rare Pantera 200 had a radically different front suspension- nothing is the same.

Mabe so with Wilkinson but that's not the discussion I had with him. He reminds me of my father when I was a kid..."what do you want that for kid?". He tends to be very very self serving?

The dimensional similarities with the early Mustang front spindles, bearings, brake sizes to me was very noticible. Current "trans-am" vintage Mustangs run a large diameter spindle. '70 Mustang vintage.

I noticed that the P car was the small dimension type spindle like the 65 Mustangs.

I also noticed the similarities to the street Pantera components of the GT40's. The Girling 18/4, 16/4 brake calipers, etc, etc.

This information as far as I can determine was never straight out and forth coming from the DT factory. It was always on a "need to know basis".

I have no question in my mind whatsoever why Ford had enough of dealing with DT. From a distance I clearly see Ford's involvement in engineering of these cars and the similarity with them and the Cobras is so similar, it's like Dejavu all over again.

It was all Ford money, engineering involvement, financing and organization of both cars, parts and race teams. Ford permitting both Shelby and Detomaso to hang their own names on the door and get credit for the entire programs. Mesmerizing to me.

Both instances kind of remind me of the novel, then the movie, "The Betsy". All very interesting to me. The power of the eccentric billionaire reaching down and permitting a new millionaire to be made and watching for the results. Will it be total success or total destruction?

Pictures available to me (and everyone else) such as Candy, and Andy, are not revealing in a specific engineering sense. Curiosity has gotten the best of me I must admit.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not a POCA member so I won't get to see those pictures of Gray's car unless someone posts them? Hopefully curiosity will not kill the cat in my case?

Can someone help me to put some pictures up I've been trying for 6 months every time I double click to upload picture nothing happens iv tried every labtop and desktop in house. #1006

quote:

Originally posted by eric:
Can someone help me to put some pictures up I've been trying for 6 months every time I double click to upload picture nothing happens iv tried every labtop and desktop in house. #1006

Single click "Add Attachment?" at the bottom of the reply window. If that doesn't work, you might be blocking Javascript.

Your photos should be interesting, Eric, since the early cars (as-stock) had a third type of spindle, different a-arms front & rear, integral steering arms and lots of other parts that do not interchange with production Panteras. I've only seen one of these things with the wheels off and it's been decades ago.