Ready to Upgrade from 60's Alfas to a Pantera

quote:

Given I'm UK based its a bit tricky to properly inspect any potential cars

Welcome, Dave!

Many of us received long-distance help from other owners in our Pantera searches. I had several owners inspect cars for me, and had two LA area owners each spend a full day with me inspecting cars. One even put me up for the night!

I've returned that favor many times, even to include multiple photos and a drive test report.

So, when you find a prospective candidate, please let us know. If someone is close to the car, they will likely be very willing to inspect it for you.

We do this out of our love for the marque, so you can keep your wallet in your pocket.

Good luck in your search.

Hello Dave; Welcome & PLEASE post some pictures of your Alfas!...Mark

Hi Dave, yeh be great to see some pics of the Alfa's.

Guys

Thanks for the encouragement and offers of help - much appreciated.

I am currently in NZ racing my Lotus 27 (one of the actual 1963 Team Lotus Formula Junior cars) and don't have access to my photos of the Alfas - however perhaps this will tide me over:

This is my Chevron B20 F2 car from 1973, raced in period by Steve Millen - who although was from NZ is most famous in the USA. Unsurprising seeing he has the most all-time wins in IMSA GTS history with 20 victories, won the Daytona 24 hrs and Sebring 12 hours, a couple of Indy Lights wins, multiple National Sports Truck Championships - and oh yes, amongst other things a Le Mans class win too.

For those interested, here is a picture of Steve Millen racing in my car in period at the Macau Grand Prix - I think its such an atmospheric shot!

Bad day at the office!

Racing my Titan Mk6 at Oulton Park when the engine let go and took out enough of the fuel system to make things interesting...

I'm loving those pictures! Please keep 'em coming.

I can't wait to see the Alfas.

As an aside, any of you Alfa fellows here know (or of) Tom Zat? We've become good friends over the past several years, working on some legislative items. I understand he's somewhat of an enigma within the Alfa world. (?)

You have an impressive collection and obviously some enhanced driving skills to go along with them. Tell us more about your racing experience. I am surprised and delighted to see that several owners have open wheel formula cars.

Love the chevron, seen a few of these in hillclimb events. Is it a BMW engine?

Thanks for the enthused responses - I must say I was a little unsure about posting non-Panerta photos

All my single seaters run Ford engines - and in my humble opinion think that Ford has had the greatest impact in racing with its engines than any other. Sorry Chevie or Ferrari or anyother marque fans, but as an example there is no equivalent to the DFV.

The Chevron runs a very rare injected Cosworth FVC in F2 spec. I also have a big valve injected Cosworth BDM engine for it, which would allow it to run as an Atlantic car.

The Lotus 27 has a Cosworth MAE on double twin choke Webers and the Titan runs a 1600cc Kent to Formula Ford regulations.

I must say I cant wait to get my hands on a 351 Cleveland and have spent countless hours (amounting days or weeks in total) reading up on them and upgrade potential.

I was initially thinking that I would keep the Pantera relatively standard, but I find myself looking at photos of 180 degree headers and trying to decide whether to exit them from the original silencer location or move the aircom condenser / fan

I came into racing relatively recently (within the last 5 years) and totally love it - and can recommend to anyone that has always wanted to be a "racing driver" to take the plunge.

What amazed me (and I understand almost everyone who started racing as an adult with lots of road-driving experience agrees) is just how hard it is.

I have had the privaledge of owning and driving a few fast road cars that need to be driven (as opposed to driving themselves), like 1980's 911 Turbo, E-Type, etc. and I assumed that I would therefore be reasonably "good" at racing. Far from it as I found very quickly that it is more than just whether you have some car control at speed. I found that racing required not just a proper understanding of lines through a corner, but also lap-on-lap the consistancy around where one is braking, at what point one turns into the corner, the transitions of ones input across accelatation / braking / turn-in / re-acceleration / straightening up the steering / etc. through the corner, etc. etc.

The other part the I found very hard was the close proximity of the cars. Single seaters have no brake lights so initially when I was approaching a fast corner with my nose cone just 6" behind the gearbox of the guy in front I had to back off before reaching the braking zone. It just seemed crazy to stick right behind him when he might brake really early, or spin right in front of me, or take an odd line and we touch wheels (which sends one car skywards), etc. It took a lot of self-motivational chats to myself to force myself to stick in there and not back off, even when my car and his car are sliding through a corner inches apart, right on the limits of adhesion.

Anyway, enough of this boring rambling! Here is a picture of me in the Titan not on fire.

Apart from the racing - there are two great other reasons to take the plunge:

1) the racing community is so friendly and helpful (just as almost every motoring enthusiasts community seems to be - especially you guys!!!). Just to prove the point, my racing friend Andy is in below picture helping with pulling the cars apart for the winter rebuild.
2) working on single seater racing cars is so much fun, especially as you can get to everything so easily relative to a road car. As you can see, there isnt much to them.

Pic shows where I keep the racing cars at the moment, which is at a WW2 airfield base called Dunsfold just outside of London (where the Top Gear track is for fans of The Stig).

quote:

Tom Zat

MarsRed

I'm sorry, I dont know of Tom Zat.

But I can show you another photo of one of my racing cars.

This is my Lotus 27 (car 54, in the lead) when it was a factory Team Lotus car driven by Peter Arundell at Monaco in 1963 - the year he won the championship.

quote:

This is my Lotus 27 (car 54, in the lead) when it was a factory Team Lotus car driven by Peter Arundell at Monaco in 1963 - the year he won the championship.

That picture is awesome.

What a view that "corner marshall" had - he's probably still talking about it!

Thanks for posting

Rocky

That's a great photo.

Great pictures, we are car guys, this is a great site with a lot of help and information on it.
A lot of people are willing to help people with their searches/quest for a Pantera.
I for one travel inside the US a lot and have met some really great people who own fun cars. Let me know if I can help.
PS drove a newer Alfa in Spain great car I can't wait for the regular cars to get in the states sometime in 2015.