A friend was recently sideswiped and sent into a guard rail, and his '73 was badly damaged in front. Instead of totaling yet another Pantera, he and his Insurance co are trying to save it. But everything forward of the pedals is pretty bad. What do you have? Contact Ray Seifert at <rayself@aol,com>
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Correct email
rayseif@aol.com
Larry
Looks like the rearward movement of the driver’s A-pillar has tweaked the roof. Anything can be fixed but I think a closer inspection of this car is going to find a lot of the damage is not shown in this photo.
Larry
Thank goodness the driver wasn’t injured!
Even if you spend more to repair it, than what it would cost to buy an equivalent Pantera, what’s it worth after the repair? Who’s going to fix it and how many years will it take?
The only sensible scenario is to total it and buy another one. Maybe some $ could be found by buying the wreck from the insurance company and parting it out.
@davidnunn posted:Thank goodness the driver wasn’t injured!
Even if you spend more to repair it, than what it would cost to buy an equivalent Pantera, what’s it worth after the repair? Who’s going to fix it and how many years will it take?The only sensible scenario is to total it and buy another one. Maybe some $ could be found by buying the wreck from the insurance company and parting it out.
I have to agree with that.
Guys, he's had that same car for decades and is still in love so not strictly rational. And his fully subsidized (via insurance) effort will save another car from the scrapyard or being parted out.
Bosswrench, I completely understand but who can he trust to do the job correctly? I recall, many years ago (1980's), a photo article in a POCA Quarterly, about a "wreck" that Dennis Quella repaired. He took the car completely apart and rebuilt it the same way it was built when it was new. When I say completely apart, I really mean it. All the sheet metal was removed, so the car began it's new life as a bare, perfect, chassis. The car was beautiful when it was finished.
He says his trusted local mechanic has restored several Euro cars and is willing to do it even after seeing the wreck. Probably not on any sort of tight schedule for completion. I suggest some sort of legal contract so both know what the other expects. And his location is rural PA- not a hotbed of sporty-car ownership. We'll see what actually happens.
True craftsmen are still around in the shadows, most working for fairly low wages because they enjoy playing with cars. I've owned and driven two "splitters' in my lifetime, both done by unknown local metal-wizards better than I at bodywork. Splitter is the name for a pieced together car either the front or back half. Both my cars drove well for decades, even being low-level raced a bit.
Sadly, the damage to this car appears even worse than what I did to 2511 in 2015.
I and my body shop created a reasonable estimate that was below the 75% repair vs agreed value that determines whether the repairs are made, or the car is declared a total loss, triggering a full policy payout, and the opportunity for a salvage buyback
But I knew at the onset I would be spending far more than the insurance payment, and I was determined to not see 2511 become a parts car
it sounds like this owner may have a similar point of view regarding his car. If he has the love, the funds, and most importantly the patience to wait for a no doubt extensive repair process, I personally urge him to go for it.
Larry
Larry,
Yours was just a scratch ! See; ... buffed right out!
@bosswrench posted:Splitter is the name for a pieced together car either the front or back half.
Never heard that term, we always called them 'cut and shut' cars
Larry -
Not sure if you are in direct contact with the owner, but I am sure you can be an excellent resource WRT sourcing parts…. Does Jerry Mooberry still have a supply of major assemblies that could be of value?
Lots of little stuff is available on line, but those are probably not really the parts he needs!
Chuck
Chuck,
yep, already in touch with Ray. Jerry Mooberry had some of the pieces he is going to need for this car but that was eight years ago.
I have some of the pieces he’s gonna need, most notably, the remnants of the front clip I purchased
repairing Ray’s car is going to come down to, like I said, the issue of patience and funds.
Larry
wrinkles like that in the roof mean a long, long road to doors that close...Unfortunately, its a truth that the parts that can be salvaged will mean a lot of time and not a lot of dollars...but geez, the best opportunity for a second life is probably being reincarnated as a track car...Lee
Oh, that was a beautiful car....but time to take a few deep breaths and grieve...
I don't care how good the body guy is, this is just going to need a jig along the lines of the factory jig to get it straight.
I would not be shocked if the entire monococ is tweaked to the side and either up or down. You may be able to pull it out but the question is whether or not it will stay there. One bump in the road and it will pop back.
Even so, we are talking laser lines to precise center points. Even if you have the machine for it, it will tie the machine up for months. I'm thinking that it has to be on the machine just to reset the post and the fenders while you weld them.
I think that now, this car is just a parts car donor. I'm sad too.
Larry's car was child's play by comparison. It was hit straight on, not on the angle this one was.
This car can absolutely be saved. I have a customer with a GT5-S that was hit so hard in the right rear 1/4 that it cracked the trans case in half and buckled the left 1/4 panel . It looks absolutely perfect today ( thanks to Kirk Evans)
I have a complete front clip that has minor damage on the tips of the front fenders available. Please have Ray give me a ring. 410-596-3170.
If he's in PA, that's even better.
Ron
@rmccall posted:This car can absolutely be saved. I have a customer with a GT5-S that was hit so hard in the right rear 1/4 that it cracked the trans case in half and buckled the left 1/4 panel . It looks absolutely perfect today ( thanks to Kirk Evans)
I have a complete front clip that has minor damage on the tips of the front fenders available. Please have Ray give me a ring. 410-596-3170.
If he's in PA, that's even better.
Ron
If you are game, go for it. Best of luck to all.
I am kind of the same situation, fix it or sell it. Fortunately it was hit straight on and the only visible frame damage was in front of the suspension pick up points . Unfortunately someone just cut the fenders annd removed tgem. After seeing Larry’s car and seeing what can be repaired I have some thinking to do.
...I'm with Doug...outsiders call this "frame damage," but its all about shaping the monocoque, and this means a really big pull on a frame machine. The good news, that part of the job is only labor intensive--a world of chains/clamps, torches and sledgehammers, with a goal of stretching the hulk back to where the rear of the doors finally fit, ending when the windshield sits flat. And only then comes the bodywork. The bad news are the wrinkles over the driver's side and the extra wide gap at the front of the passenger side.
No, I don't think that the car would be doomed to driving a little sidewise or leaking in the rain...and the alternative (parting the car out) will not recover a third of what the car was worth before...But history won't curse the owner for scrapping it out--even a Mangusta is not truly a rare car. Its really a matter of what you want next.
So if you have parts lined up (and I would include a straight roof, structurally the car will need to have some members that are not wrinkled to death) the next path would be to strip out the seats and maybe even the engine so the sado-machinist work with the torches and chains could be tried...its been 35 years since I've been around this stuff, but I'd think after a couple thousand dollars on a frame machine, whatever decision you'd make then to go forward would be more clear...
My collision pictured above raised the front of the roof at least 1/2 inch, put some small ripples on driver’‘s side roof above B pillar and put a bend in the drivers rear quarter panel. Not to mention the whole front was about 1/2 inch tweaked towards driver side.
The interior was stripped and engine/ZF removed, and the chassis spent many weeks sitting on a frame machine
I was quite pleased and relieved upon taking the repaired car in for its first four wheel alignment, with the technicians having no issues dialing in all four corners, including 4-corner weight balancing.
The car will track hands-free at 80 mph or greater with the proper roadway
The glue in windshield sits amazingly well with no more than a 1/8 inch gap on all four sides
my point here is that it can be done
because I collided with a high four-wheel-drive Subaru, the impact really did not disturb the front end or suspension
The only “frame” metalwork required was the small primered section in the photo below
Sure it can be done, and done well but the shop has to be willing to tie up it's machine for maybe months.
The other thing is at some point the sheet metal gets work hardened which is not a good thing to want.
What compounds the issue is that at some point the Detomaso factory, Vignale, or where the car was bucked had to repair their own jig. Some have noticed that the spacing of the tire to the fender lip varies from driver's side to passenger side when turning the steering wheel from left to right or vise versa. That is the result of the repaired jig not being right on after the "factory" repaired it.
Back then lazers weren't used and it had to be done by tape measures and t-squares.
Jigs fabricated from welded steel components can wear out and can twist and bend just a bit after hundreds or thousands of chassis are bucked on them.
The jig I saw of one brand of Pro Stock Camaro was built on a 1" thick steel plate which alone weighed in the tons. The entire chassis had to be built on it including the cage which was part of the chassis.
Resetting the Pantera's now on the shops chassis jig possibly could correct that and the car could be better then when built.
I'm not sure what originally was off but likely it was slightly non-parallel kinked to the left in front but that is speculation without looking at the original jig and measuring it. That likely got scrapped when Ford bought out Vignale and closed it down entirely and dismantled it.
Apparently there was major bad blood between those two parties at the time?
The big frustration is that the car needs to sit on the shops machine while setting the front sheet metal to get even spacing and still might need to be stretched or compressed to get it right. That just requires good sheetmetal to begin with and lots of patience from the mechanics.
Having the roof 1/2" higher is my point of the chassis being not only bent to the side or compressed, but seemingly on the Panteras, bent up. That shows on the doors but possibly also on the rear of the car where the decklid is aligned.
Compounding the issue, who's to say if the rear decklid isn't warped a bit as well from age and the deck lid lift pressure.
Getting this car "straight" is an art form rather then a science.
What is surprising to me though is how well the crash-ability of the original is to absorbing the impact like an accordion. The front end impacts are all very similar but to me, forget about getting out the wrinkles in the sheet metal. There isn't anywhere that you can hide them, unlike a Mustang of the era which has wrinkles in the original substructure sheet metal new.
The Pantera's problem is that the original sheet metal work was too good. Not every shop is going to want to do this work.
In the '70s I saw quite a few (35-40'ish) Panteras that were just scrapped with damage like this and there were more then a few "parts cars" around. I don't think repairing them to this degree was ever a serious consideration at the time?
Larry, I thought that you hit a dear with yours?
