First I need to say that I am sorry for your loss.
I have never driven my Pantera in winter conditions. I do not know how it would react.
I can say that the original factory configuration is exceptional even in flooded pavements.
I know that no matter what you do some cars respond negatively to wider/lower profiles.
I know that summer profile tires are made just for that. Summer warm and hot road conditions. The formula of the rubber compound just won't work in cold conditions. With full depth treads many summer tires can get by in a dusting BUT really are leathal with anything approaching ice.
Believe this or not but the best high performance tire that I have ever driven in real winter conditions is the Goodyear Gatorback GT+4 with the unidirectional pattern. These were original equipment on my Taurus SHO. I went through three sets of them, 215-60-16.
I made the mistake of going to a 225-55-16 with an "all-season" aqua tread. It has been nothing but problems. It virtually hydroplanes on dry pavement, and it is a AA traction tire.
Tires are probably 90% of the handling of the car. If you change the profile that's ok, BUT you are re-engineering the car. For Southern Californian type driving it is no problem. Here in the NE that COULD be very leathal.
The compounds on todays high performance tires are sophisticated. When they say summer ONLY, they aren't screwing around. One doesn't need a prescription to buy tires here, but maybe that isn't a bad idea.
I'm not lecturing, I'm still learning, and like you it is a hard learning curve.
Summer tires can indeed be tricky during wet/cold conditions. I just replaced the winter tires on the M5 with summer hi-perf tires .. perhaps a little early for SW Germany, however with warm weather already here, others made the switch weeks ago. Plus, tommorow I'm making the one hour trek to Nürburgring. 
Looking at your picture, the damage doesn't appear to be as bad as it could've been. More importantly I'm glad you're able to type about your experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Best wishes.
Looking at your picture, the damage doesn't appear to be as bad as it could've been. More importantly I'm glad you're able to type about your experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Best wishes.
Sorry to hear about your car. I think the major contributer to your incident was the 5 degrees C. My tire guy preaches over and over that summer tires, even all seasons basically turn to stone at 6 degree C and below. High performance tires are probably a couple degrees worse (8C). Not suggesting you get snow tires for a Pantera but on our daily drivers the benefits of winter tires are more than a snow capable tread pattern. They have an entirely different compound that stays soft at low temps. Also explains why they wear so fast if you leave them on in the summer. So your SLIDING - KEEP SLIDING is pretty much the expected reaction on cool wet roads. On a dry road they would have likely hooked up again. Thanks for sharing your story. Out here in the east we had some very nice but cool weather early in the season and was tempting to take the car out a bit early. Good lesson for us all.
FYI
I've lost total traction in the rain in a '71 Mach 1 Mustang riding on BF Goodrich tires & a '71 Chevy Suburban running on Goodyear truck tires. Neither set of tires were summer only high performance tires.
The Mustang lost traction when the rear tires crossed over the painted lines crossing the road at an intersection. Those wet lines were like grease. Once the tires broke free & started spinning, there was enough water on the road to allow the car to hydro-plane.
The Suburban lost traction in a braking manuever, I tried to brake too quickly, and exceeded the grip of the rear tires (a common malady in trucks with no load in the rear). That long Suburban went sideways quickly and swung like a pendulum.
I have driven the Pantera in the rain on 315 section Dunlops with no problem, even at 70 mph. I haven't driven it on the new PS2's yet. I have learned from my mistakes, grown older and more cautious. When it starts to rain, I normally pull the Pantera over into one of the slower lanes and just cruise. Let the guys with all season tires & anti-lock breaks go fast. If I want to go faster I slowly increase speed in small increments and drive for several miles at each increment before going to the next. If the rain starts coming down harder, I slow the vehicle down. I also leave a lot of braking room between me and the car ahead of me, so I never have to brake too suddenly.
I have found for each vehicle & tire combination there is a rate of acceleration, and a rate of deceleration at which the tires will break loose when the road is wet. There's also a speed at which the car will hydroplane. You've got to carefully experiment a bit to find these limits, but so long as the limits aren't exceeded all is well. Air pressure also affects the wet traction limits of a tire, an over inflated tire is a handicap on a wet road. I run my tires near the recommended settings. Tire temperature should be an obvious consideration for any auto enthusiast, it doesn't matter what form of racing you like to watch or participate in, everyone knows the tires must be warmed up before you rock and roll. So as the temperatures decrease, so does my speed.
Driving in the rain is also why I will not modify the motor in my Pantera to the point where it comes on the cam too abruptly, reacts too violently, or is in any way too hard to control. I want my Pantera capable of smoothly pulling away from a stop at low rpm and accelerating smoothly too.
Finally the tread of any tire is designed to efficiently channel water away from the contact patch when the vehicle is traveling forward and possibly backwards. The tread does not channel water when a tire is sliding sideways, which is why it is so hard to regain traction in the wet once the car starts to spin.
Having written all that, Marcus, you know you have my heart felt sympathy. I am glad you were not injured.
George
I've lost total traction in the rain in a '71 Mach 1 Mustang riding on BF Goodrich tires & a '71 Chevy Suburban running on Goodyear truck tires. Neither set of tires were summer only high performance tires.
The Mustang lost traction when the rear tires crossed over the painted lines crossing the road at an intersection. Those wet lines were like grease. Once the tires broke free & started spinning, there was enough water on the road to allow the car to hydro-plane.
The Suburban lost traction in a braking manuever, I tried to brake too quickly, and exceeded the grip of the rear tires (a common malady in trucks with no load in the rear). That long Suburban went sideways quickly and swung like a pendulum.
I have driven the Pantera in the rain on 315 section Dunlops with no problem, even at 70 mph. I haven't driven it on the new PS2's yet. I have learned from my mistakes, grown older and more cautious. When it starts to rain, I normally pull the Pantera over into one of the slower lanes and just cruise. Let the guys with all season tires & anti-lock breaks go fast. If I want to go faster I slowly increase speed in small increments and drive for several miles at each increment before going to the next. If the rain starts coming down harder, I slow the vehicle down. I also leave a lot of braking room between me and the car ahead of me, so I never have to brake too suddenly.
I have found for each vehicle & tire combination there is a rate of acceleration, and a rate of deceleration at which the tires will break loose when the road is wet. There's also a speed at which the car will hydroplane. You've got to carefully experiment a bit to find these limits, but so long as the limits aren't exceeded all is well. Air pressure also affects the wet traction limits of a tire, an over inflated tire is a handicap on a wet road. I run my tires near the recommended settings. Tire temperature should be an obvious consideration for any auto enthusiast, it doesn't matter what form of racing you like to watch or participate in, everyone knows the tires must be warmed up before you rock and roll. So as the temperatures decrease, so does my speed.
Driving in the rain is also why I will not modify the motor in my Pantera to the point where it comes on the cam too abruptly, reacts too violently, or is in any way too hard to control. I want my Pantera capable of smoothly pulling away from a stop at low rpm and accelerating smoothly too.
Finally the tread of any tire is designed to efficiently channel water away from the contact patch when the vehicle is traveling forward and possibly backwards. The tread does not channel water when a tire is sliding sideways, which is why it is so hard to regain traction in the wet once the car starts to spin.
Having written all that, Marcus, you know you have my heart felt sympathy. I am glad you were not injured.
George
Excellent words to the wise. My sympathies for your loss. I am scouring the forum for wheel tire data and this gives me food for thought. I have a track car with track tires (Toyo RA1) and don't need to push the Pantera to 1+ lateral Gs anyway. I can go 70mph with the stock motor just fine and am currently driving on Michelins from the 1970s in the OEM sizes while I look for new wheels/tires and find that the car composes itself quite well. Since I live in Minnesota I will be looking for some high performance tires that perform well in the rain and at least cold but not snow. That being said, once a mid-engined car starts to go, especially without modern electronic assists, it goes. I'm glad you weren't hurt.
For the curious, a car status update:
After being out-of-country for five weeks without any news, and not certain that the car was not deemed a financial write-off when I left, I dropped in at the body shop today to see what state the car is in now.
The news is good; the car is being fixed. They are still waiting for a couple of suspension parts before it will be mobile, but the body work has started. And they are doing it properly, doing an excellent job.
It looks like 5758 will ride again.
I will post here one more time when I have the car back, with proper kudos to the so far very helpful and friendly people involved.
First kudo must go to ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia). It would have been very easy for them to say this was just another old wreck. They didn't.
(And a tongue-in-cheek thanks to Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso (whom I consider two of the best half-dozen drivers I know of) for demonstrating before my eyes at the Grand Prix du Canada that anyone can screw up.)
After being out-of-country for five weeks without any news, and not certain that the car was not deemed a financial write-off when I left, I dropped in at the body shop today to see what state the car is in now.
The news is good; the car is being fixed. They are still waiting for a couple of suspension parts before it will be mobile, but the body work has started. And they are doing it properly, doing an excellent job.
It looks like 5758 will ride again.
I will post here one more time when I have the car back, with proper kudos to the so far very helpful and friendly people involved.
First kudo must go to ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia). It would have been very easy for them to say this was just another old wreck. They didn't.
(And a tongue-in-cheek thanks to Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso (whom I consider two of the best half-dozen drivers I know of) for demonstrating before my eyes at the Grand Prix du Canada that anyone can screw up.)
Marcus,
Excellent news, glad to hear it.
Doug M
Excellent news, glad to hear it.
Doug M
quote:Originally posted by eclectechie:
It looks like 5758 will ride again.
Hi-Ho Silver... and away!
Michael
Marcus,
If you dont mind my asking where did you end up taking the car for repairs?
Blaine
If you dont mind my asking where did you end up taking the car for repairs?
Blaine