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Tom Tjaarda, one of the world's most respected car designers, has graciously accepted an invitation to travel from his home in Turin, Italy to attend ItalianCarFest Weekend, Sept. 8-10, 2006 in Grapevine, Texas (near Dallas).

We are especially excited to have Mr. Tjaarda, perhaps best known as the designer of the DeTomaso Pantera, since ICF is honoring the model's 35th anniversary. In addition, Mr. Tjaarda also designed the iconic Ferrari 365 GT California Spider, the classic Fiat 124 Spider and many other wonderful cars. In 1997, he was honored at the Pebble Beach Concours d´Elegance and regularly serves as a judge at that event.

Still active in the industry, Mr. Tjaarda will make a presentation about car design at the 'ICF Saturday Evening at Gaylord', held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center following the all-Italian car show, this year on the waterfront of Lake Grapevine. Mr. Tjaarda states this will be his first trip to Texas and we hope you will help us by bringing your FIAT spider to the showfield to greet him.

This is another big step in providing Italian car enthusiasts with a show of national prominence that takes place between the coasts. Last year, the Saturday show attendance was 8,500. In addition to Texas, ICF has had entrants from 15 states to date.



Here is an update on ICF 2006:

The weekend starts with the Friday Reception hosted by Texas Driver Magazine at the opulent Gaylord Texan Resort on Friday Sept 8, 2006.

The main event of the weekend, ItalianCarFest, will be held ON THE WATERFRONT at Lake Grapevine. In addition to the beauty of the Italian machinery, we have secured the use of a party boat (2 story- capacity of 100 people) for use as a lounge for the exclusive use of entrants and sponsors throughout the afternoon. And we will again have live music during the show.

The hours for Saturday's show are 10 until 4, Sept. 9th.

At the Saturday Evening at Gaylord we will have a Silent Auction for Charity and hear from Mr. Tom Tjaarda.

Track Day for Italian cars is on Sunday, Sept., 10th. We will also have a scenic drive that same morning followed by a brunch in a 9th floor executive condo overlooking Texas Motor Speedway. Last year the drive and brunch were sold out.

All Pantera enthusiasts are invited to join the Italian car extravaganza this September.

-Jerry Lee Phillips

817 521-4400

Pres.- Italian Car Club of the Southwest, a 501 (c) (4) organization

Web site: italiancarfest.com
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Tom Tjaarda will be the guest of honor at Italian Car Fest here in Dallas in September. We are trying to put together a display of his cars. Do any of you know of any Longchamp's or Deauville's that we could possibly get for the show? Any help or leads would be appreciated. Or a Ferrari 365 California Spyder.

Thanks,

Jeff
6559
For those of you that plan on being in Dallas for this show, and entering your car, I suggest you get on the ball now. This show is only about 7 weeks away now, and it promises to be the biggest yet. They've actually had to move it to a new location this year, because there are just so many cars. They WILL fill up--don't be a slacker! Plus, with Tom Tjaarda coming, it can't get any better.

There is no other show like this for this part of the country. It shouldn't be missed.
From the ICF organizers:

Please get out the word-

ItalianCarFest Weekend starts Thurs., Sept 7th with a caravan from DFW Airport to the Gaylord Texan Resort as we pick up famed designer Tom Tjaarda on his first trip to Texas! In addition to Italian car enthusiasts such as yourself, we hope to have a nice representation of the region's media there too.

Mr. Tjaarda is credited with design of the Ferrari 330GT, Ferrari 365 California Spider, DeTomaso Pantera and FIAT 124 Spider.

Mr. Tjaarda will be our Honored Guest at the Friday Reception at the Gaylord Texan Resort hosted by Texas Driver Magazine.

And we plan to have a special area on the showfield Saturday, Sept. 9 for Mr. Tjaarda to discuss his designs with ICF entrants and the general public. We expect a show day crowd of 12,000.

The ICF Saturday Evening at Gaylord will be a wonderful event and Mr. Tjaarda has agreed to make a presentation.

Sunday, Mr. Tjaarda will be present for our Track Day and related activities at TMS.

We will soon announce the exact time of Mr. Tjaarda's arrival. For those of you coming from out of the area or out of state, we will give you as much notice as possible.

We will post details of Mr. Tjaarda's arrival at italiancarfest.com.

Thanks to all for your generous support of ItalianCarFest.

-Jerry
817 521-4400
We are up to 26 cars! Thanks to Todd Reid for starting this list. As I'm sure you all know, Tom Tjaarda will be here and we are trying get as many Panteras as possible. We will also have a tent with examples of Tom's cars to educate the public and create interest in Panteras.

The show needs our help. If any of you could volunteer about 45 minutes of your time on Sat afternoon, the 9th, from about 3:15 to 4:00, they need our help to stage winning cars to the winners circle. This is something new this year and we need approximately 15 more volunteers. Please let me know if you would be interested.

Deadlines approaching. Prices go up August 5th, so get your applications in ASAP. http://italiancarfest.com/ Also hotel reservations are only gauranteed through August 5th, so get your reservations for the hotel in ASAP. http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylordtexan/ And be sure to specify you are part of ICF to get the special rate.

Question. Do you all think it would be a good idea to have little signs made up for each entry describing the car and any special features? It could be placed on the dash or on the window. Please let me know.

Tom Tjaarda's arrival. Tom gets in Thursday late afternoon and their will be a gathering of cars at DFW to welcome him to Texas. If you would like be part of this, let me know.

Here is an update of who's showing their car.

Todd Reid Pantera - Oklahoma
Johnny Holmes Pantera - DFW
Jeff Detrich Pantera - DFW
Nick Sakulenzki Pantera - DFW
Chuck Engles Pantera - Oklahoma
Jim Gray Pantea - Oklahoma
Tim Tytle Pantera - Oklahoma
Dave Bell Pantera - Houston
Pat Lobb Pantera - DFW - Former Winner - featured in PI Magazine
John Taphorn Pantera GT5 (I hope) - Houston
David Tureaud Pantera - Houston
Bill Fraser with Dennis Jones Pantera - Former Winner - Houston
Matt Bradley Pantera - DFW - Former Winner
Bill Eckart Longchamp GTS - Austin - Featured in PI Magazine
Scott Black Pantera - DFW
Gray Gregory Pantera - Houston
John Neal Pantera - DFW
Mark Pinson Pantera - DFW
Gene Orr Pantera - DFW
Ted Glover Pantera - DFW
John Johnson Pantera - DFW
Bob Fett Pantera - DFW
Mark How Pantera - DFW
Ron Cantu Pantera - DFW
Chuck Keding Pantea - DFW
Frank Jerome Pantera - DFW

And Dave and Linda Adler are coming!
Last edited by jeff6559
33 cars and 4 weeks to go! This could be the biggest Pantera gathering outside of The Las Vegas Fun Rally and Concorso Italiano so if you're hankerin for a good Pantera fix, how about driving to Dallas for the Sept 8-10 weekend.

Sign up now at http://italiancarfest.com/. And if you are planning to be there with your car, please let me know.

Dinner with Tom Sunday Evening. The Pantera club gets Tom Tjaarda to itself for dinner on Sunday evening. Let me know if you'd like to attend.

Tom Tjaarda's arrival. Tom gets in late Thursday afternoon and their will be a gathering of cars at DFW to welcome him to Texas. If you would like be part of this, let me know.

Here is an update of who's showing their car. And we're hoping for more!

Todd Reid Pantera - Oklahoma
Johnny Holmes Pantera - DFW
Jeff Detrich Pantera - DFW
Nick Sakulenzki Pantera - DFW
Chuck Engles Pantera - Oklahoma
Jim Gray Pantea - Oklahoma
Tim Tytle Pantera - Oklahoma
Dave Bell Pantera - Houston
Pat Lobb Pantera - DFW - Former Winner
John Taphorn Pantera GT5 - Houston
David Tureaud Pantera - Houston
Bill Fraser with Dennis Jones Pantera - Former Winner - Houston
Matt Bradley Pantera - DFW - Former Winner
Bill Eckart Longchamp GTS - Austin
Scott Black Pantera - DFW
Gray Gregory Race Prepped Pantera - Houston
John Neal Pantera - DFW
Mark Pinson Pantera - DFW
Gene Orr Pantera - DFW
Ted Glover Pantera - DFW
John Johnson Pantera - DFW
Richard Perry Pantera - DWF
Dennis Quella Race Pantera - Denver
Bob Fett Pantera - DFW
Mark How Pantera - DFW
Ron Cantu Pantera - DFW
Chuck Keding Pantera - DFW
Frank Jerome Pantera - DFW
Kevin Govett Pantera - DFW (If it's done on time!!)
Doug Lockin Pantera - Houston
Firouz Haase Pantera - DFW
Dennis Coffman Pantera - Houston
We picked Tom Tjaarda up at the airport today. He's very gracious and extremely interesting. I wish we could have him for a week!

Anyway, we have 36 DeTomasos coming and there may be a couple more who show up the day of the event.

Dave Adler and his daughter, Star, came to our local meeting on Tuesday and are looking forward to the show on Sat.

Weather should be beautiful! If you're looking for something to do, take tomorrow off and head on down to Texas for a great weekend!
You are right about Tom Tjaarda. He is a great guy, very humble and down to earth. He came up to us in the motel parking lot and just started talking to us, like he was just one of the guys. See if Carol Shelby would do that, and I think the last I heard he charges $250 per autograph! Tom was signing things for anyone and taking pictures with any one who asked. No big head there, just a real nice guy!
What a weekend! Good weather, great cars, lot's of friends and Tom Tjaarda. Who could ask for more.

First of all, let me say that you will never meet a more personable and friendly person than Tom Tjaarda. He wowed the attendees regardless of what kind of car they drove! It was truly an honor to be in his presence.

Besides Tom, Dave Adler of Pantera International and Dennis Quella from Pantera Performance Center in Colorado also attended the show. We had many other Pantera owners from all over Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas including Sean Korb from North Carolina! Thanks for coming.

We had 37 DeTomasos registered for the event; two did not get finished in time, and one additional car showed up the morning of the event. Two cars even showed up without their owners. Gray Gregory and Dave Nichols were not able to make it but they sent their cars anyway. And we had a very rare Longchamp GTS owned by Philip Eckart. All in all, 36 cars ain't bad. Probably the biggest collection of Panteras ouside of California and the Las Vegas Fun Rally - ever! What else needs to be said. We were nicely grouped together to the right of the Tom Tjaarda display tent. A special thanks goes to Mark How, Fred Foreman, and Tim Tytle for reserving tent space that allowed all of us to sit in the shade. The list of cars is shown further on down. Thanks to everyone who attended; you made the event what it is.


Show winners included:

Best Pantera Pat Lobb Gorgeous black 72 with webers
Runner-up Richard Perry Dual turbo, nitrous car in great show condition

Best Race Car Dennis Quella Tube frame race Pantera
Runner-up Gray Gregory Race converted Pantera
We swept all the awards in this category! This was good for the Pantera marque as it showed the world that Panteras are more than just pretty a pretty face. These cars can snarl with the best of them.

Texas Drivers Magazine's Sponsor's Award went to Jerry Quam's beautiful red Mangusta.


As is the tradition at Concorso Italiano, we held our own awards ceremony. And at the end of our awards, we all got in our cars and fired 'em up. Nothing beats the sound of a Pantera!

Chuck Engles and Jim Gray were kind enough to raffle off several T Shirts and posters from their Pantera collection at http://www.italiancarstore.com/. If you haven't taken a look at their collection, they have have some really neat stuff. Thanks guys.

Winners included:

Tom Tjaarda's Favorite Mark How
The car looks great and Tom especially liked the interior, saying that Ford rushed the car into production and so the stock interior was as good as it could have been.

Dave Adler's Favorite Scott Black
Dave gave a 35th Anniversary Medalion signed by Tom Tjaarda

POCA President John Taphorn's Favorite Dennis Coffman

Best Pantera Mark How
Best Small Bumper Car Frank Jerome's recently fuel injected car
Best L bumpered Car Dennis Coffman
Best Unrestored Car Dave Nichols' car "El Foxo"
Best Interior Richard Perry
Best Exterior Frank Jerome
Best Engine Compartment Richard Perry
Most Lived-In Pantera Bob Fett

And there was a write-in category for "Best Flames on a Pantera" which I won, thank you very much. %^))

An interesting comment was made at the awards about how all the cars looked so good. Several years ago, you would have seen a lot of tired, unrestored cars, but now we are seeing more and more really well done cars. A good sign for Pantera drivers!

Dinner was held that night and Tom gave a short talk about design and answered questions. It was informative and educational. It's amazing that he is still so active in the industry. He recently did the Shelby Series II car, and is doing a lot of work in China and Korea. His favorite American car: the Chrysler 300C.

Sunday evening, the Pantera Club took him out to dinner for some Tex Mex. What an engaging person. Special thanks go to Nick and Vanessa Sakulenzki for showing Tom around Dallas. Turns out he is also interested in airplanes so they visited a couple of airplane museums in town. They probably got to know Tom better than most people having spent so much time with him. They told me his favorite meal when he is in the US is a hamburger and a milk shake. He doesn't get that at home apparently.

Pictures are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60386408@N00/sets/72157594280447307/
http://valentine.phanfare.com/album/113571
http://gallery.italiancarclub.com/carshows/icf/icf06/
http://community.webshots.com/user/whitnah100

Well, that's about it. See you at next year's Italian Car Fest.

Jeff Detrich
6559
Pantera Club of North Texas


Todd Reid Pantera - Oklahoma
Johnny Holmes Pantera - DFW
Jeff Detrich Pantera - DFW
Nick Sakulenzki Pantera - DFW
Chuck Engles Pantera - Oklahoma
Jim Gray Pantea - Oklahoma
Tim Tytle Pantera - Oklahoma
Dave Bell Pantera - Houston
Pat Lobb Pantera - DFW - Former Winner
John Taphorn Pantera - Houston
David Tureaud Pantera - Houston
Bill Fraser with Dennis Jones Pantera - Former Winner - Houston
Matt Bradley Pantera - DFW - Former Winner
Bill Eckart Longchamp GTS - Austin
Scott Black Pantera - DFW
Gray Gregory Race Prepped Pantera - Houston
John Neal Pantera - DFW
Mark Pinson Pantera - DFW
Gene Orr Pantera - DFW
Ted Glover Pantera - DFW
John Johnson Pantera - DFW
Richard Perry Pantera - DWF
Dennis Quella Race Pantera - Denver
Bob Fett Pantera - DFW
Mark How Pantera - DFW
Ron Cantu Pantera - DFW
Chuck Keding Pantera - DFW
Frank Jerome Pantera - DFW
Kevin Govett Pantera - DFW - DNF - Did not get finished on time
Doug Lockin Pantera - Houston
Sonny Morgan Pantera - DFW
Dennis Coffman Pantera - Houston
Dave Nichols Pantera - DFW
Ken Davis Pantera - DFW - DNF - Did not get finished in time
Fred Foreman Pantera - Houston
Jerry Quam Mangusta - DFW
John Kuethe Pantera with big block Chevy - DFW
quote:
Show winners included:

Best Pantera Pat Lobb Gorgeous black 72 with webers
Runner-up Richard Perry Dual turbo, nitrous car in great show condition

Best Race Car Dennis Quella Tube frame race Pantera
Runner-up Gray Gregory Race converted Pantera

We swept all the awards in this category! This was good for the Pantera marque as it showed the world that Panteras are more than just pretty a pretty face.


Jeff, it's awesome to see all those modified Panteras do so well amongst other Italian exotica.
Well done to all who participated.
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