As the "New members are encouraged to introduce themselves here", here comes my introduction. I´m sorry to do this quite late, as I have been participating into this forum for couple of years already. I don´t wanna be unpolite and anonymous anymore.
I am a 41 years old happy European Pantera gts owner from Finland, living in the countryside with my wife, two Italian greyhounds and four cars. One of those cars is just too much for me, for my wallet and for my motivation, so the Audi Quattro 1984 has to go.
With the help from Roland Jaeckel I got the copies of the factory papers which tell me that my Pantera left the factory at the end of 1977. She was first sold to Austria, but I haven´t been able to find out any information about her early years in Austria. I don´t even know if mr Hans Leeb mentioned in the factory papers bought this car for his personal use or as a business move, as he was a De Tomaso dealer in Austria at that time.
I don´t know what has happened to my Pantera after that. For a reason, which I do not know, her registration date mentioned in the official papers is 1982. I do know, that in some point she ended in Lebanon, and the earlier owner bought the car in 2004. He brought her to Netherlands in 2008, and I bought her from him in April 2010. I drove the car back home to Finland together with my wife, all the spare parts and everything filling every possible place in the car. The trunk was missing, so there really was not so much space available. It was an exciting adventure for us and those 1000 kms are pretty much all the driving I´ve done with my Pantera so far. During those 1000 kms I also learnt to enjoy the feeling of driving and handling a Pantera, and I sure miss that feeling and that huge sound. During those kilometres I also learnt to hate those GT5 side mirrors with flat mirror surface... I have got the new California Vitalonian mirrors waiting, and I hope they will make it a bit easier to see what is happening behind the car.
My original plan was to find a Pantera which would allow me to enjoy for the first couple of years, do some thinking and planning while driving and having fun, and then to start some level of fixing/restoration/modification or something like that. While doing the first necessary improvements I found out lots of nasty details all around the body of my Pantera. All the cracks I had read about, were there in my very own precious Italian sports car. There is not very much rust in my Pantera. It looks like lots of steel has been already changed in those areas, which typically rust. That work is done mostly quite well, and I´m happy and satisfied with those fixings. I´m not happy with those other repairs which have been done mostly in the rear of the car. The car has got somekind of a hit into it´s rear, and that part of the car needs lots of work to be done. An unbelievable layer of bondo covered all the problem areas, even inside the wheel wells. Even the cracks were basically "fixed" with bondo. I do know, I should have noticed these things when checking the car, but I didn´t. I put the blame on my great lack of experience combined with a huge amount of enthusiasm! It was the second test drive which really sold the car to me, as I was feeling like the car was talking to me, and that she clearly belongs to me. We were ment to be together. And then I called to my wife, and told her, that this Pantera is going to come and join into our family.
After all my findings I decided to change my plans with the car. I did not register it into Finland, except I started the dismantle of it. As I have never done anything like this before, learning and finding out information seems to take lots of time. I have never had any kind of Italian car, or American car or any kind of V8 engined car or mid-engined car before, so pretty much everything included into Pantera is new to me, and that makes this quite an adventure for me. So, I´m proceeding but slowly. I´m also trying to do all this fixing so, that it will be an enjoyable experience and not an unpleasant job or something that just-has-to-be-done-as-quickly-as-possible. With some luck, enough energy and time, I might get her back on the road for the summer 2013. We will see. The engine was just redone by the earlier owner, and atleast it seemed to be in proper condition and giving something like 400 hp. The gearbox will be checked out by a pro during this spring, then a new oil pan and maybe some other intake manifold included, and the engine-gearbox package is ready to go.
During this winter my plan is to proceed with the sheet metal work. Do all of it, or atleast to get it started. My brand new self-made English wheel, tig welder and some other new tools combined with the old ones are ready and waiting. Carbon hoods from Sweden, stainless steel fuel tank from Hall Pantera, new Koni shocks and lots of other stuff are already waiting for the installation, but lots of little stuff is also still missing.
I don´t have experience from racing and I´m not an experienced mechanic. For example, the function of an engine is still pretty much a mystery to me. I did not get involved into cars as early and as young as guys normally do. When I was young, I was into art and rock´n´roll, cars really came into my life a lot later. I had never even seen a Pantera in my whole life, before I started searching for more information about them.
For work, I make sculptures. Steel, stainless steel, reinforced plastic etc. are materials which are common to me.
The visual look of the Pantera was a very big reason for me to buy one for myself. I was quite happy to be able to see and meet mr Tom Tjaarda quickly during his visit to Finland last year. I really admire the shapes he has given to Pantera, it´s a beautiful object from all the angles.
Link to our "Car family Schroderus" -pages, which my wife started few years ago. Pantera has got her own section. Car Family Schroderus
Link to my pages presenting my art works Sculptor Kimmo Schroderus
Link to the pages, which present the art works I´m doing with my wife, who is also a sculptor Schroderus & Schroderus
And those links are also linked to each others, so basically just using www.schroderus.info as an address is enough.
Yours,
Kimmo.
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