Resurrection of 1729
I have been restoring cars as a hobby for many years. I have always been partial to 68-72 mopars. A few years back the prices in the mopar camp became absurdly overvalued and I decided to look out side the box.
That is when I started looking for a restorable Pantera. When looking for a car, it is nice to match your talents with the needs of the car. I am pretty good with sheet metal (and have a friend that is much better) and can do most any body and paint work. It is also good to find a car that is advertised so that it scares off other prospective buyers, 1729 was that car.
After seeing the car on E-bay, I drove to Atlanta to have a look. What I saw was a diamond in the rough. The bad was obvious, it needed floors, front valance, rear valance and sheet metal in the quarter. Okay, no problem there, some of the “good” cars I looked at needed sheet metal. The whole body needed messaging especially if going black. The interior needed most of the basics, seats, carpet, some of the switches and gauges. I was very happy to see that the frames were solid. The car had been sitting for about a year, but a little gas and the engine started right up and ran great, the ZF trans shifted like new. The Anza exhaust was in good condition, rear bumpers were there and in good shape.
Compared to some of the mopars I have restored, this looked pretty good.
After making the purchase and getting the car home I began to tearing it apart. I could see some previous work that needed correcting, but nothing too out of line.
I wanted a clean euro look so I painted it black, filled in the side marker lens, removed the front bumpers, made housings for the front GTS lens, installed the mini front air dam and just installed some new rims and tires. My biggest challenge was finding some of the more obscure parts like drip rail trim. Took almost a year to find that.
It has been a fun 2 years and the car is pretty much finished. I will probably put the car up for sale to fund the restoration of my other pantera #4499 and my E-type roadster (I plan to keep both).
I am just an average guy with an average salary with a slightly out of balance affection for cat cars
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