Wayne's GT5-S rebuild

I cannot believe that WPL resides within about 50 miles of me!
This car seems to belong in a MUSEUM, but maybe WPL feels such
a car must be driven. A Master Piece either way, a Master Piece...

This shot through the back window shows the cover shield extension/center screen mount freshly installed and test mounted.

This is a little better view of the front taper lock and where it was mounted to the screen. The lock or catches caught in inside lips of the extensions to hold down the screen with any visible fasteners.

Here's another view of the screen cover finished and in place. The Dzus type factory fasteners were kept for their familiar look. One of the biggest tricks was to figure out how to make the screen install repetitively without scratching anything and it seems to be working well so far.

Kirk, once again, amazing work. I don't expect to do anything like this to my car, but I can't quit reading your updates! Really great work.

Two points, sort of off topic -

1. Not certain, but I think one of the 'Shelby' Panteras ending up in New Hampshire with Pat Mical. He mentioned it years ago; I may call him for an update on that.
2. Yesterday I was looking at another car (a 993tt Porsche) that HAD been in my town (Montgomery AL) but was owned for years by a guy in... Perrysburg OH. Just noticed that on your posts and thought it was an odd coincidence.

Okay, back to our regularly schedule programming.

Yes Pat has one of the white with pearl (blue or red were the first 2) bodies Mr. Shelby purchased and sold. The cars came into my shop for enine/trans assembly, homologation, and were sold through the AmeriSport dieler network.

My earler post explaning the fastener-less screeen mount did not read correctly---it was to early. Should say

The locks or tapered catches caught the inside lips of the extensions to hold down the screen with out any visible fasteners.

This will be the last pictures of the build.

The shot below shows the opening for the in coming engine air from the side scoop that replaced the original windows ducting the outside air through the side covers into the engine air box. The slots are for the catch lips to mount the scoops.

Here's a shot of a freshly fitted and mounted scoop before paint.

Gas access door

Here it is with the louvers mounted. Wayne's louvers are removable from the outside. They are held in with 2 pins mounted in the top of the louver that line-up with corresponding holes in the cover housing and there's one allen head bolt in the bottom of the louver that can be removed from the outside. This gives you fast access to the duct work and also makes cleaning the louvers much eraser.

Here's a shot of the rear AC screen replacement louver that is mounted in the back of the car to cover the condenser. This particular part I designed and started making in 1982. It is currently still out of production but I'm hoping to bring it back and there may even be a new version with larger louvers on the horizon.

Wayne kept his original radiator and front mount fans. The fan blades were larger on late model cars but came without any shrouding. This makes the efficiency less than half when you are trying to force air through any heat exchanger. We added tightly fitted and much wider fan shrouds that significantly improved the air flow through the radiator helping to keep the engine temp correct.

Thank you all for looking and again for all the kind words. This was a difficult build but I'm please with the final results.

In the future there will be a couple of other builds posted. One is an on going crash repair and restoration for Howard Renshaw and the other started out as parts and pieces so the body reconstruction photographs are somewhat freighting.

A friend recently asked why I continue to work in the automobile industry----here's one big reason---he 8 and loves cars.

Thanks again.

Kirk Evans --- AmeriSport ---

Awesome thread! Thank you for sharing the pictures and progress, fantastic craftsmanship shown here.

Wayne has decided to sell his car featured in this thread. It would take over 100,000.00 to build a Pantera like this not including the car and in this case, Wayne's car was incredibly clean when I started the build. If a potential buyer finds this thread and would like to contact me directly, please feel free to call 419-874-0505 or email at kre@adelphia.net

Thank you

Kirk Evans --- AmeriSport ---

> In the S catorgory, I think he had 2 bodies and 3 cars.

One of the locals (St. Louis, MO) has a black 1986 GT5-S Pantera (# 9426) that he
describes as 1 of 5 Shelby/Carlini cars imported by Chrysler. Last I heard it
has a 392C. I lost touch with the owner and am not sure if he still resides
here or not.

Dan Jones

Dan,

Hank ordered 2 S cars--one car and one body and his son ordered one car which ended up being the last Cleavland powered Pantera build by the factory. We did all of these cars except on of Shelby's S cars. All of the cars came through the AmeriSport shop and I did the epa-dot work on his GTS which is the car original ended up with the turbo Chrysler---Can't remember the details any more---this was 85-87 and I had my hands full with trying to make AmeriSport work.

One thing and it came from the man him self---there was never a Chrysler powered Pantera Shelby program ever seriously considered. That was a roomer mill chit-chat project project and will say it again---that turbo car was a beast---but could never be a street driven on any regular basis. I had allot of turbo idle surge at idle.

Great memories!

Maybe I should post some of the "Dinner with Detomaso" discussions we had in the day. Talk about personal intimidation at 30-31---years of work wiped out if I said something wrong to Mr. D.---or so I thought as a young man---great times good and bad.

Well, well, well. Sadly, I've not had the opportunity to stay current with this forum due to family issues. But I just finished reading all 18 pages of this thread and studying the photos. Most impressive, Kirk, but I'm not at all surprised.

Having known you now for close to 30 years, and seeing examples of your design and fab work in many different Pantera's, you never cease to amaze me, my friend. I can still distinctly recall following the build of "The Black Car" eons ago, with the all-aluminum Donovan engine. After we trailered it to Vegas for the National Convention and you finally unloaded it, there was a crowd around that car for the ENTIRE weekend. Owners were amazed at the unique design of your components, as well as the overall build quality. That was a great weekend...and our non-stop drive back in the red car still brings back fond memories.

Although I'm not familiar with the vehicle in this thread, the parts featured further showcase your creative originality and attention to detail. To all the other forum members, I hope you will have the opportunity to see this vehicle, or at least some of the unique parts from it. Only then, will you fully appreciate the quality of this work.

After nearly 35 years of owning my '74, it has finally gone on to another owner - and I know "me mate" Gary will take good care of it. Fortunatley, I have many photographs to reminisce over. All the best, Kirk. Take care.

Pete

Simply stunning work!

I found some more shots of the disassemble of Wayne's car. Her's one during the first tear-down of the suspension---this was a very nice car to start with just lacked the detail Wayne wanted.

Here is the freshly removed engine with 6030 miles. Wayne kept all of the original emission control parts installed making only cosmetic improvements.

I just found a series of measurement pictures in the folder of the red car that were actually Wayne's black GT5-S. I was able to check the new wheel well construction side to side measuring Wayne's car which was in the shop at the same time. Here is one of many measurements photographed for comparison.

Thanks Wayne.