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My journey

G Guest
When I was a kid, my parents divorced, and on the weekends that my dad had the kids, we all had to cram into his (what he thought was cool) Porsche 924 and park in the garage in his building near Lake Merrit in Oakland.

His parking spot was next to a dark, forest green pantera, and way back then (33 years ago) the Pantera became my all-time favorite car, even to this day.
Between then and now I've owned over 20 cars, many classics, but lost or sold them in the years after high school when I discovered drugs, and for 10 years found myself homeless, living under a bridge in Seattle.

In 1999 I pulled my head out of my ass, cleaned up, cared for my Grandmother until she passed, but during that time I started racing model cars, full scale cars, flying model planes, lots of cool shit, all on a high level. I was ranked 20th in the US in 2005, and was California Champion a few years ago, racing 1/4 scale offroad RC cars. I airbrush paint the model car bodies for a living.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago, I was at my jewelers (I like fine watches-Rolex, Vacheron, Patek) and he was showing someone pics on his phone of some old ferarri. I jokingly asked, "is that yours?" and he said yeah, I have 2, this one I just had restored. I was blown away, I had no idea my jeweler friend was a motorhead and collector.
The last year, I've been building a new Subaru BRZ (look it up) street monster. I added a big fat turbocharger, methanol injection, engine management (similar to Motec), I dumped a shitload of money into this car, and it was a BEAST. This little 4 banger made 350 hp to the wheels on the dyno, and there wasn't much that could hang with it on the street.
I did find however that the tuner crowd was not what I was seeking, mostly younger guys, most with no money (cut coils to lower their cars instead of proper coilovers), nice crowd, just not for me.

My neighbor owns a Pantera, and 5 years ago I told him "someday I'm gonna get one of these just like you".

After seeing my jeweler's car pics, it just hit me, "what am I doing dumping money into this car that I'm going to lose big-time on, when I should be out looking for my dream car.
That night I put ads on the forums for my BRZ and sold it 3 days later to a nice gentleman from Indiana.

6 months ago, I didn't know if I was going to live, I had a clogged heart valve, was told I had less than a year to live unless I had open heart surgery, so I said " sign me up! Get me in as soon as you can! I was having terrible chest pains and probably had a few minor heart attacks (that I kept quiet about until after i got insurance). The first doctor freaked out and said "you don't run, move fast, you are "on vacation, hang in there and we'll get you fixed right up". Well, it took 4.5 months to finally get my surgery date, and by then I was praying to God to live until the operation date. I was REALLY a day or 2 away from death.

Long story short, the surgery went great, I have a mechanical heart valve you can hear clicking from across the room, but I'm healthy and free to live out my life as if nothing had happened. My issue was genetic, I was born with an irregular heart valve, and was told it was normal that people with this problem had the same things happen (late 40's-early 50's heart konks out, once the chest Pains start you have a year or so to live, but easily fixed)so it's been 6 months, and I'm recovered, healthy, and after seeing those Ferarri pics, I decided right there I was going to go get me my Pantera!

I found Roger Sharp's white 72 listed, went and drove it with him, called him later that night and said I'd buy the car.

I trailered it home 2 days ago, I've driven it twice now, and it is everything I ever dreamed of and more! I am beyond stoked, and it was a pleasure, and an honor to buy Roger's car from him and his wife.

I'm taking full advantage of the second chance I've been given in life. I spent more than I had factored in to spend, but luckily I have a large list of tasty Top Ramen recipes, which I'll be eating for the next year! lol

I'm literally one of THE happiest guys on earth right now!

I've named her "Snow White" (who I always had a thing for as a kid), and now that she's mine, oh man, she's gonna get treated like a queen. I'm gonna caress her, get to know her Real good, spoil her, and do her really hard occasionally LOL, just so she knows who the Boss is! lol

Here's a pic of her in her new home.

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markcharltonmarkcharltonOld enough to know better and still young enough not to care. My '71 Pantera
Mike,

What a great story, and thank you for sharing it. It's impressive to hear what you've been through, and how you managed to pull yourself back from the edge. I wish you many, many years of happiness and excitement with your new baby. You will come to appreciate the white. It's so easy to care for, and even of your A/C "needs a re-charge", you barely need it in a white Pantera. This is a great community here, so whatever questions you have, there will always be an abundance of help and answers.

Enjoy!

Mark
MT mike the snake (Guest)
After building my hotrod Subaru BRZ (a new RWD joint venture between toyota and Subaru)it took so long, and we had so many issues, and I found I was married to my new "tuner" guy, so any adjustments, and tuning, required making an appointment, dropping the car off, usually the finding of something that required the car sit at the shop for a week or more, it was kind of anticlimactic when it was finally finished. It was a beast, on the test drive when I was selling the car, I raced a 2004? Corvette at a stoplight and just smoked his ass. The buyer (a very nice chinese fellow) immediately afterwards said "I will buy car" lol. It was a very cool car, lowered, fast, totally finished and dialed in. I found though that the tuner crowd, and the weekly "cruise" (100-200 cars that meet at a big parking lot every Friday night) was just not for me. Most of them were kids (20-30 years old), most with not much money, lots of lowered cars by cutting the coils, leaving them bouncing and ruined, but "cool", and NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING sounds worse than those coffee can mufflers on an unmodified, automatic, Honda or Nissan. You know what I'm talking about, loud, brappy, and when they "get on it" it takes 15 seconds between shifts, all the while making the most God awful exhaust sounds. There were some nice cars, there was the drift crowd, the lifted, giant tired 4x4 crowd, but I just found that all that just wasn't for me, plus, I'm old now, and most all that went down after my bedtime LOL.

My neighbor, Chuck, owns a sweet blue GT4 clone, big riveted on flares, roll cage, badass car.

One day, I though we had a Hell's Angels pack of bikes pull into the cul de sac, the house was shaking, I knew something was up.

I went outside to find that Chuck had hosted one of the Pantera club meetings/drives at his house, so I was looking at maybe 20 totally badass Panteras parked all along the street just down from my house.

I remember telling Chuck, "I'm saving, and one day I'm going to get one of these cars". I met many of the owners, and the whole crowd of Pantera people were totally cool, offered any help I might have needed when the time came to buying, and they all just struck me as a group of people I wanted to be a part of. This was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I'd long forgotten, and had been busy building this little rice rocket, when I had my epiphany the other week about what I was really doing car-wise, so now, things happened more quickly than I had expected. I expected the search and journey to find "THE car" for me to be longer, and harder, and I had expected to actually travel around and look at lots of cars.
Financially though, I was still limited to the lower range of available cars. I had one race car in SoCal I was planning on looking at with intentions of putting back to street use (which would have been cool as well. I liked the idea of a totally unreasonable, fire breathing, gutted, roll caged, barely legal, gnarly street car) which would have been cool, but was priced much lower.

After meeting Roger, and taking the test drive in his car, I realized I wanted a nice, completed, fun car to own and enjoy and drive, so I spent more than I had factored to spend, but I know I got a great deal, and I got my new dream car, and I know that the people I meet through owning this car are going to all be people that I'll enjoy knowing, and I'm looking forward to going to some club meetings, and meeting other Pantera owners in my area for lunches or to go for drives, or just to hang out.

I think I've found my new "place" in life, at least in part. I know the people I've met so far are much more "my kind of people", so here, now, it begins.

I took my 3rd drive today, the car is awesome, I got 3 or 4 "thumbs-up" at stoplights, got sideways a little a couple times just because I could, I'm a happy camper.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome, I look forward to participating here on this forum, and to meeting new friends, this is a big turning point in my life.

I'll probably even get healthier and lose some weight because I'm going to be eating nothing but Top Ramen and vegetables for the next year! LOL Just kidding, I'm actually back to work now, but it took a while to recover from the open heart surgery, so all is well.
garth66garth66"When speed is the only thing that counts"
Congrats on your car Mike! Take a drive in your new toy this Thursday and come on down to the Pantera Club of Northern California (PCNC) meeting at Coco's in Sunnyvale. You'll make a lot of new friends, get to see other Panteras and show off yours - as a matter of fact, a number of PCNC folks know your car very well and may be able to tell you more about it - and generally have a great evening with a bunch of cool folks.

PCNC Meeting
Last Thursday of each month
Coco's Sunnyvale: 1206 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA 94085
7:00 Folks start arriving for dinner
8:00-9:00 Meeting start (but folks arrive around 7 for dinner)
9:00-whenever Visiting in the parking lot and checking out the cars

We're also having a Superbowl Party on Sunday at Bob Benson's shop. Another great event to come meet the crowd and see more Panteras!
http://www.panteraclubnorcal.org/c---upcoming-events
lf-tp2511lf-tp2511Member
quote:
got sideways a little a couple times just because I could

Welcome Mike Smiler I've driven Roger's car. You bought well.

Please do be careful in your early months of ownership. A mid-engined car introduces a WHOLE new set of attributes regarding all you have learned with front engined/rear drive cars.

When a Pantera rear end REALLY slides out, it is OUT. No early 'telegraphing' of what is about to happen.

Steering into the slide just don't work quite the same on a mid-engine.

You will find yourself just going along for the ride until you scrub off enough speed, either through black rubber marks on the street, or contact with an immovable object.

You can ask me and State Farm what happens when you try a combination of both deceleration techniques. Frowner

Larry - PCNC member

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MT mike the snake (Guest)
This is the car I cut my teeth on, I do have a bit of mid-engined experience, AND, I've spun around in this car on turn 2 at Sears Point on cold tires-one very scary moment. T-2 at Sears is an uphill, right handed, totally blind turn, so I had maybe 40 other cars coming into view (with me pointed backwards) all swerving to miss me! That spin happened so fast I was "both pedals In" before the car was even hald way around, no time to even countersteer.

Roger didn't hold back on our test drive, and what I noticed was the car was super neutral when sideways, like VERY controllable, I was impressed, and the car struck me as pretty darn dialed in.

My plan is to just drive and enjoy the car. I have 4 drives on the car so far (one tankful of gas worth) and nothing but thumbs-up, "hey! Cool Car!" people asking me about the car wherever I stop, I'm LOVING it! This has been my dream car since I was maybe 13.

I plan to just drive and enjoy the car, clean things up, and the only real mod I plan for the future is a full roll cage that ties every corner of the car together, not just the cabin. I want to stiffen the whole car up with a complete endoskeleton, so no more little stress cracks, no creaking pulling out of parking lots, then, later, when I have the money, I plan to put a concourse, show-car paint job, redo the interior, and take the car to the next level of awesomeness.

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MT mike the snake (Guest)
Well,
it's been 3 or 4 days, as far as my girlfriend is concerned I am AWOL! lol

I've been driving around, showing my friends, enjoying my perfectly running, leakless, loud, absolutely perfect new Pantera!
I took my buddy for a ride yesterday, and punched it full throttle getting onto the freeway for the first time, scared the shit out of both of us! This car is a BEAST! Probably in the 500-600 HP range. acceleration is incredible. Even with the 335 wide "cheater slicks" the wheels broke loose in both 2nd and 3rd!

I just filled the tank for the 4th time, the car runs perfectly. I haven't been more excited or happy in years!

The car is just as Roger said it was, needing nothing, runs perfectly, just a good runner, ready to be driven and enjoyed.

I met a fellow Pantera owner who lives 15 minutes from me, who came over last night and dropped off a bunch of literature and shop manuals for me to borrow and read. He was very nice, and it was very cool to meet another Pantera owner.

My neighbor owns a GT4 clone, with the rivetd on flares (beatiful car) and years ago he had a meeting at his house, where there was probably 15-20 Panteras parked in front of his and my house, where I got a chance to meet many of the Pantera club members (including Roger) and everyone was just so nice, offered any help (I had mentiond I was saving to buy a Pantera some day) and I knew that was a group of people I wanted to be a part of. I'm very happy to have found a new "family", and I'm looking forward to attending the next meeting in a couple weeks.
MT mike the snake (Guest)
I plan to attend one of the next meetings here soon.

There's a very nice gentleman named Ron that lives maybe 15 minutes from me that came over, brought me some cool literature to read, and I plan to go with him to the next meeting.

I''m still in "early to bed, early to rise" mode since my surgery. Getting stronger every day, but I have to limit what I try to do at times.

My journey exploring Snow White's hot body has been keeping me busy. The dwarfs are gone, but there IS a gremlin (I named him Jorge) that is causing electrical issues that I've been troubleshooting.

Jorge is a sly little bugger though, seems as soonas I fix one thing, another part konks out.

SO, I'm taking my time to go through the electricals on the car and get everything working.

Jorge will soon be looking for a new home! lol
bosswrenchbosswrenchMember
There are a couple of ways to stiffen the Pantera 'frame'. The best is also the most complicated: you seam-weld the entire car as a supplement to it's original spot-weld construction. Some of the requisite areas will burn the paint so this is usually done during a restoration followed by a repaint. From the owners that have done this, it results in true race-car handling.

The next is some sort of suspension stiffening attachments underneath. Several of the vendors market bolt-&-weld-on systems front & back. They also seem to work; one vendor ran the famous Silver State Classic in his Pantera so equipped. He passed over a hump-back bridge at 'about' 150mph and according to a course worker, flew 165 feet. The landing left scrape marks in the blacktop for quite a ways but he finished the event, then drove 125 miles back home. A week later he discovered that both front subframe connectors had broken off the tub welds! The only thing holding the lower front suspension on was the aftermarket stiffener system! He hadn't noticed any odd handling at legal speeds.....

Full roll cages protect the driver but do not stiffen up the chassis much unless the cage is also tacked to some/most of the surrounding body panels. A std 2 or 3-point hoop roll bar behind the seats does no stiffening and may not even be necessary; there are several records of crashes and roll-overs- one above 180 mph- and the drivers survived with minor injuries. The stock body construction just behind the seat is essentially a large roll hoop.

When talking about accidents, I always think of the legendary description of the little Piper Cub- "The world's safest airplane! It's barely fast enough to kill you...."
MT mike the snake (Guest)
Today, the journey continues.

Snow White has been playing coy with me, she's had me fixing a bunch of minor electrical problems, (blinkers, taillights, headlight, tach,) before she said I could look under her skirt, but today is the day!!!

At 1:30, Snow White will be showing it all! She's going up on a lift, where I'll be cleaning, inspecting, changing the engine and gearbox oils, greasing anything with a grease fitting, and just getting to know her underside, something I've wanted to do since childhood lol.

The only caveat is if it rains. It's not supposed to rain, roads are still damp but safe to putt along at 40 or so for a few miles down to the shop, but if it's wet enough to spray water off the tires, I'll have to wait til tomorrow.
MT mike the snake (Guest)
well, things went sideways pretty quick.

After switching all the fluids, greasing al the u-joints, and cleaning, we went to fire the car up and warm the car up to set the oil levels.

The car started with it's normal VROOM! and then died.

I spent the last 2 days swapping out the unilite module (hard to get up to the distributor) but still no spark.

Tomorrow I'm doing a litle more troubleshooting, and then I'll be looking for a shop to get it running.

This is frustrating because there's not much I can't do myself. I'll find the issue, it'll be something stupid simple I'm sure.

It's jusy weird that it acted up at the same time we worked on it, making me think it was something I did, knocked a wire off, something, but I think it has something to do with the coil or the MSD box.

We'll know tomorrow after noon.
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