How can this happen

Pantera GTS. It may even be the first GTS ever built.

Bill,

the fact that the low serial number car was built in 1972 is not that hard to explain. Gary (comp2) also has a 1972 pushbutton (#1280). It would have been a coach laying around at Vignale in Turin or the Fossalta plant in Modena, put aside for one reason or another, that they didn't get around to fixing until 1972.

The thing that is odd about this car is that the car DOES NOT have pushbutton doors.

I brought this to Ben's attention a while back, he said he would look into it, but he never got back to me.

Two possible explanations, the early coach needed new doors sometime in its life, or a later coach was given an early production number as there was a hole in the series of chassis numbers that deTomaso felt compelled to fill in.

DeTom, the coach may very well have been laying around the assembly plant in 1972 and became the guinea pig for the first GTS conversion.

your friend on the DTBB

The more I hear about the serial numbers the more I question that which is written about them. I think when they ramped up to build the "American cars" they set many of them on the back burner to finish up latter as they had a variety of differences. Few paterns hold true for all. Is it really thought to be a GTS? Mine says GTS but I believe it is just a repaint as none were produced then.

Question: Does it have a trunk latch in the door jamb?

Gary

that's an excellent question Gary!

But its a Euro car, so getting an answer is likely not going to happen.

Does 1280 have the trunk release in the jamb?

George

1280 has bothe a door jamb and rear trunk release. It also has cloth seats which I believe is original! I know there was some talk of cloth seats for some cars he was building at the time. Not being an American car they seem to experiment more. If you look at the "Pushbutton Index" web site, look at all the variations in the cars.

I also meant to point out; If this car was not finished till 72, they very well may have run out of PB doors. That's why I was curious about the trunk latch.

I think we can put all our information together and still be certain of not much. Enough time has gone by who knows what owners have changed.

I know of a guy who is leading authority on Duesenburgs. Evidently he does Duesenburg restorations and always scores very very well. The feeling is his "authority" tends to lean more toward how his cars are then how they really were.


Gary

that's funny Gary, I guess when you are the authority, you get to call the shots! Duesenburgs are serious collector items too.

Getting back to Panteras, do you get the feeling there were a bunch of unfinished push buttons laying around that the factory experimented with in 1972?

your friend on the DTBB

George, Your not sayin' they took the pushbutton cars as if there were not as good as the pre L ..and they just used them in some kinda experment to see what would happen? .. are you? The agony the early cars had to take. AAAHHHH!!

quote:

DeTom, the coach may very well have been laying around the assembly plant in 1972 and became the guinea pig for the first GTS conversion.

Yep. I think DeTomaso used europeon GTS cars to experiment with. He did all kinds of wierd stuff to them.

quote:

Getting back to Panteras, do you get the feeling there were a bunch of unfinished push buttons laying around that the factory experimented with in 1972?

your friend on the DTBB

Think so. Wonder how many "pre-L's" have an door jamb trunk release we don't even now. I don't think anyone trully knows or will ever know wht they did with all the chasis.

G

Over in the UK, a friend and I unearthed a right-hand drive pushbutton car (# 1286) which is also a 1972 car.

So far, it's the only RHD pushbutton car we know still to exist, although we know of at least two others that were built.

The theory is that it was pulled off the line at Vignale in '71 and converted to RHD before shipping into the UK.

It's in a fairly bad way, but is now stripped of all its paint and is awaiting restoration by Roger Brotton.

Derek Williams

That's interesting because over here #1286 is supose to be the first Pushbutton car imported.

Would be good if we had a regestry we could track these sorts of things eh?

Anyone know the current web site for the "Pushbutton index"? I think he changed where it was hosted. Used to be "smartstoreinc I think but it is not there anymore.

So, LPB do you have a trunk release in the driver side door jamb?

Gary

1362 does not have a release in the jamb.