Tom was the surprise guest speaker at tonight's monthly meeting of the San Diego Pantera Club.
Tonight's meeting was held at the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park. The museum opened their doors to the Club for our private function after normal business hours.
Tom was astounded when he saw the valuable and rare cars that were on display. He could not conceive how any one Museum could afford to have such a large collection of rare cars worth millions of dollars each in one location.
It was explained to him by the Museum director that 50% of the cars on display are owned by the Museum and the other 50% are privately owned and remain on display for 3 months at a time.
This quarter, it is Ferrari that is the featured car on display. You can imagine why Tom was so amazed at the quantity of such valuable cars in one location.
Tom has been contracted by a friend of his to design and build 12-1967 custom Mustangs for a trip through India. The cars are being built in Detroit right now. The trip will take place this January and will be filmed.
One of these Mustangs will be displayed at the upcoming SEMA show in Las Vegas.
What about those bumpers on the car that he just sold in Las Vegas?
Tom said that when he was much younger, he was flying down the road in a Pantera at 120 MPH and the front end started feeling scary, light. He wanted to make some small, aerodynamic mods way back when the car was in production, but they were never approved. He said that nowadays, modern tire technology can overcome some stability problems, but that tire technology did not exist when the Pantera was in production.
So, this car that was just sold was sort of an experiment in aerodynamics and interior improvements. He said that he did nothing to the drivetrain after he bought the car.
All in all, a very memorable evening. Tom signed lots of autographs and posed for lots of pictures.
He was very charming, informative, humorous and a great guest speaker.
Kerry
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