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Yes they are.
I talk with Dave and Kevin at SEMA.
I dont think it will be a "mild custom"
They are waiting for a new frame from Roadster shop, for the Pantera before they starts.
Kjeld
How do you put a new frame under a unibody/monocot car? I am sure that it can be done by cutting into the car, but I am not sure about what would be gained by doing such a thing. Of course this is basically a reality television show, so what makes sense to us as owners might not appeal to the general viewing public.
jffr posted:How do you put a new frame under a unibody/monocot car? I am sure that it can be done by cutting into the car, but I am not sure about what would be gained by doing such a thing. Of course this is basically a reality television show, so what makes sense to us as owners might not appeal to the general viewing public.
like this
http://roadstershop.com/galleries/nre-pantera/
Wow that green is nice. I would leave that one alone & modify a beat up car instead.
That chassis is fantastic...
jfb05177 posted:jffr posted:How do you put a new frame under a unibody/monocot car? I am sure that it can be done by cutting into the car, but I am not sure about what would be gained by doing such a thing. Of course this is basically a reality television show, so what makes sense to us as owners might not appeal to the general viewing public.
like this
http://roadstershop.com/galleries/nre-pantera/
Dont know if it is like this one. or the one they make for the Ringbrothers Pantera.
Or mabye a new design?
First time we talk about there Pantera built was in Losangeles at the carshow in Marts.
That time they told me they will use a frame from Roadstershop and mabye a Ford V6 ECO boost engine, but not 100% chore about the engine.
They want to make more Space in the "cocpit" becourse the owner of the Pantera is a tall man, they say.
At SEMA they was still waiting on the frame from Roadstershop.
Kjeld
For those of you following the Kindig Pantera build, here is the Roadster Shop chassis almost ready for shipment back to Kindig’s shop...
Beautiful TIG welds, nice chassis design but what if anything is left of the 'Pantera' they supposedly started with? I see nothing at all with even a nodding acquaintence to 'DeTomaso' or Tom Tjaarda including the bolts and nuts. This is a mid-engine concept IMHO.
Anyone else notice the firewall crossmember in front of engine has no provision for water tubes?
Wondering if this is an oversight or something else is in mind?
Larry
Kjeld, for the Ring Brothers Pantera, the Roadstershop built all new suspension with C6 Corvette spindles / uprights, steering rack and relocated suspension mounting brackets. The chassis was still DeTomaso Pantera. This one is very similar to the chassis they built for NRE. They cut away most of the Pantera’s frame and floor, then the new chassis gets welded to the old body. I don’t think the NRE Pantera was ever finished so we’ll need to wait for Kindig to see how it all turns out. The wide frame rails will let them get the engine nice and low in the chassis.
bosswrench posted:Beautiful TIG welds, nice chassis design but what if anything is left of the 'Pantera' they supposedly started with? I see nothing at all with even a nodding acquaintence to 'DeTomaso' or Tom Tjaarda including the bolts and nuts. This is a mid-engine concept IMHO.
I was down to Kindig’s shop the other day and found out the body, or what’s left of it is up in Oregon being acid dipped....I can only imagine the bracing and cross bracing needed to keep the body from flapping in the breeze...
More and More it looks like it's going to be a Custom Pantera Kit Car? Custom Frame, Corvette Suspension, Corvette Engine. After Market Trans. and No Prince of Darkness! lol Beautiful work, I'm sure it's going to look Great.
Seems my Comment should be focused on the NRE Car Not the Kindig Car.
David Archibald's mighty Pantera has a custom made road race chassis and David's car is a fantastic looking beast.
cuvee posted:More and More it looks like it's going to be a Custom Pantera Kit Car? Custom Frame, Corvette Suspension, Corvette Engine. After Market Trans. and No Prince of Darkness! lol Beautiful work, I'm sure it's going to look Great.
Not sure what you mean?? The pics show the car with a Ford Coyote engine and Ricardo ( Ford GT) transaxle. More than likely, the only 'Vette parts on the car are the hub carriers/wheel bearings .
Ron
Beautiful work on the chassis!
Jack (Bosswrench), The site photos show them fitting the Tjaarda contribution (the body) to the chassis. To my knowledge, Tom did not design the chassis so I believe your criticism of the fabrication is not well founded. Although, I don't deny you your freedom to express your opinion.
Be a shame if they cut that green car up, why not just make some fiberglass body panels?
ALBANYGT40, totally agree with you. What a shame to ruin an original car. What a shame!
I think it is important to realize these builders that have been putting out Panteras do not begin to love the cars in any manner close to how we love them.
Panteras are the flavor of the month and building one now is guaranteed to bring in viewers, which of course is what the reality garage shows are all about in the first place. Views = money = success.
Should a builder venture into new territory and create something universally acclaimed out of a Gremlin or a Pinto or a Chevette, then we would see those cars on the garage reality shows.
Bottom line, all these builds give us something to talk about and generally when they are finished, we are able to appreciate our own cars even that much more compared to what they create. 😉
Larry
The exception was Chip Foose. When he tried to come up with a customizing concept for the car, he realized he really couldn’t improve on the design. His changes were subtle and focused on undoing things DeTomaso had to do, in order to lower production costs. He even retrofitted round door handles because he thought they looked far better than the later handles. Other than custom 18”/19” wheels and custom exhaust, only a Pantera owner could spot Foose’s customizations.
I agree Larry, those are sweet..!! I like how he gave a hint of the original wheel in his interpretation. Really cool.
I usually admire what they do in that shop. Studying the photos I am wondering if they have lengthened the cabin?
One thing I hope they do not do is put the trademark doorhandles on a Pantera. Totally out of character but they seem to stick them on just about every car that comes their way☹️
anyone with computer skills care to do a point to point measurement analysis of their car versus a point to point analysis on a stock car??
Larry
I wonder if they are planning some sort of forced induction ? The NA Coyote paired with the gearing in the Ricardo Ford GT transaxle will be quite a dog. The gearing is extremely high in stock form and a lower ratio R&P is in the neighborhood of $9k ( + installation) for them.
Ron
The unfinished NRE Pantera chassis was for sale for quite some time at something like $150k, they cut up a perfectly good 9000 series GT5 for that one and chucked all the old sheet metal (inner fenders etc.) in the dumpster. I find these 'hack job' shows hard to watch as they are typically just doing it for the sake of doing it, there's little gained in the end result.
It doesn't make sense to lengthen the car there. It would require widening the doors and custom glass work for the side windows. Very complicated initiatives. I doubt that they are taking that approach.
I just watched the latest episode. They built a Chevy C10 convertible with a retractable hardtop. The engineering and metalwork is amazing. When Kjeld spoke with them at SEMA, they did say they were going to find a way to make more room in the cockpit. Assuming the Roadster Shop provided a lengthened Pantera chassis, lengthening the doors and having new window glass made, looks like it would be a walk-in-the-park for them.
There are already Panteras that have deleted the front “vent” windows and have had custom one-piece glass windows fabricated for that modification.
The lengthening of the door is easily a non-issue modification for that shop.
hearing of Kjeld’s SEMA discussion, I am now quite convinced that the areas I circled in the photos are in fact evidence of the cabin being lengthened.
Larry
Kindig Pantera Project will air in Season 8 which starts late September early October....
Well, early October is near and Kindig’s season 8 is airing on the 5th or 6th, depending on which link you read…. on Motor Trend channel or various subscription services. No idea what episode the Pantera will show up in the new season. Might be able to Stream it earlier on Discovery +… just sayin…
Rich…
Is there a Detomaso do-rag?
if you're not just being funny, yes- there is a 12" x 16" shop towel with the car screened on it. If you mean a Harley type bandanna to keep hair just right, no.
You wouldn't see it on your head here since you have to wear a helmet. It's for keeping "your" bald head from getting sun burned more likely.
I don't see where you need to lengthen the cabin 3 or 4 inches. It might change the side perspective of the car. Hard to tell if that would be a positive or negative thing? That's something I would suspect of Foose.
If it is because of the Cleveland engine intrusion in the cabin, My thought is that it is the water pump primarily that causes the issue. I've never seen anyone shorten the shaft for the water pump pulley but every time I pull the engine cover, It's the first thing that occurs to me.
If you change that and cheat the engine mounts back an inch or so you could have a flat bulkhead with a Cleveland.
What would be an issue with a Pantera water pump? I realize that Ford would never have permitted it but am a little surprised that Detomaso never tried it on his own?
I've seen many of the alternative engines for the car. I don't see the haste in eliminating the Cleveland? It's as if people are trying to eliminate it's Ford heritage and make it something it never was.
You can't even say that you can't get a good replacement block since there is the Myer block available.
Doug, it would be pretty easy to eliminate the 351C water pump and convert to a remote electric water pump or pumps. That would allow for a flat firewall. That’s what Renegade Hybrid’s did with their Porsche Chev conversions. Lowering the engine in the chassis buys more room in front too.
Another way to buy more room in the cabin is to move the pedals forward. I have the SACC 2” pedal box spacer in my Pantera and it makes a HUGE difference to driver comfort. It makes installing the pedal assy. more difficult though.
I did the pedal relocation and the floor pan drop quite a while ago. The issue is needing more elbow room as a driver and giving the passenger a civilized seat location.
The lack of that is something I would have thought Ford would have made Detomaso fix.
You don't need to go to NASA extremes to fix it. Just shorten the water pump shaft and make a pulley for that.
Spacing out the pedal box was in one of Fords memo fixes when the cars were still new. Mine is spaced out 1-1/2". 2" would be too much for me.
Ford sells a 'street rod' water pump that's 2-1/4" shorter than a stock 351-C water pump. It's supposed to be for a 351-W but with a few simple changes, I found it fits a Cleveland as well. Haven't run it since it's now on my Fontana, which needs a few thousand dollars more for a crank, pistons & rods.
I also found the whole powertrain can be moved rearward in a Pantera by 1-1/2 " with little effort and no ill effect on handling. I was able to do this in 2010 by redrilling the upper motor mounts and bending a shallow 'S' into the ZF rear mount tabs. Beyond 1-1/2" back, the front sump of the oil pan hits the under-engine crossmember, causing even more issues. But that mod was more than enough to add a flat firewall access door and a 'big cap' distributor. There are POCA articles & photos on both these mods in the Archives.
JT, no one said anything about Tom Tjaarda who did the body and interior. As we all know, Gianpaulo Dallara designed the Pantera chassis following his design of the 1969 DeTomaso F-2 racer. Using the much wider & heavier Ricardo transaxle will cause problems with a stock rear subframe since that tranny has been found to not fit between stock rear rails. Widening the rails relocates the lower rear a-arm pickup points, altering Dallara's carefully balanced Pantera geometry. Raising the Ricardo makes the C/G even worse. So it appears they decided to solve these problems by building their own frame to accommodate. Any idea what famous designer did the work, or is it an experiment?
Seems strange since an existing 6-speed ZF from RBT as proposed for the 1st Ford GT would be a bolt-in and a stock shifter would work. I wonder how the "custom" car will handle; Dallara has made quite a nice living designing well handling performance car chassis over the last 50+ years, including most of the Indycars. Dallara has a shop in Indianapolis as well as the original in Italy for 'local' work on F-2 & F-3, and some of the E-race series. I think Andretti Racing uses them on its e-racers.
@bosswrench posted:Ford sells a 'street rod' water pump that's 2-1/4" shorter than a stock 351-C water pump. It's supposed to be for a 351-W but with a few simple changes, I found it fits a Cleveland as well. Haven't run it since it's now on my Fontana, which needs a few thousand dollars more for a crank, pistons & rods.
I also found the whole powertrain can be moved rearward in a Pantera by 1-1/2 " with little effort and no ill effect on handling. I was able to do this in 2010 by redrilling the upper motor mounts and bending a shallow 'S' into the ZF rear mount tabs. Beyond 1-1/2" back, the front sump of the oil pan hits the under-engine crossmember, causing even more issues. But that mod was more than enough to add a flat firewall access door and a 'big cap' distributor. There are POCA articles & photos on both these mods in the Archives.
JT, no one said anything about Tom Tjaarda who did the body and interior. As we all know, Gianpaulo Dallara designed the Pantera chassis following his design of the 1969 DeTomaso F-2 racer. Using the much wider & heavier Ricardo transaxle will cause problems with a stock rear subframe since that tranny has been found to not fit between stock rear rails. Widening the rails relocates the lower rear a-arm pickup points, altering Dallara's carefully balanced Pantera geometry. Raising the Ricardo makes the C/G even worse. So it appears they decided to solve these problems by building their own frame to accommodate. Any idea what famous designer did the work, or is it an experiment?
Seems strange since an existing 6-speed ZF from RBT as proposed for the 1st Ford GT would be a bolt-in and a stock shifter would work. I wonder how the "custom" car will handle; Dallara has made quite a nice living designing well handling performance car chassis over the last 50+ years, including most of the Indycars. Dallara has a shop in Indianapolis as well as the original in Italy for 'local' work on F-2 & F-3, and some of the E-race series. I think Andretti Racing uses them on its e-racers.
Using the Ricardo seems to be just part of the sometimes overwhelming desire to change these cars into something else.
I think some just got them too cheap. You wouldn't find someone modifying a Cobra or a Ferrari.
I once worked for a construction company that had a motto of "total control".
If by chance they could have wound up with a
Ferrari for nothing, they'd have it hauling garbage or a race horse pulling a donkey cart full of crap.
Total control.
Ford always overthought everything and missed the parts that needed attention. They wasted unknown amounts of money trying to better the ZF when it was the strongest, most reliable part of the Pantera. And the 'I-know-better' modifiers are still following that dictum. The Ricardo was overdesigned for a supercharged hi-torque cammer V-8 and had 6 speeds when it didn't need the extra gear- even for racing.
Season 8 Ep 1 is October 1. Details of the episode blank on Spectrum cable.
