The Pantera Place
"Your de Tomaso Connection"

My Old Cars 1959 - 1966

The path to a car like the de Tomaso Pantera is different for each owner, but for me it was inevitable!   My dad bought me an old Model A Ford when I was fifteen.  The old four banger did not stay in the car long and the V8 installation was the beginning of my love for fast cars with big V8s.   Correction, they were very fast for their time!  

1930 Ford Model A
Circa 1959 Port Angeles, Washington

My 1930 Ford Model A with a 48 Mercury flathead V8 (59AB), 51 Mercury stroker crank, 49 Ford rods, dual 94 carburetors,  Offenhauser intake, Isky 400 junior track cam, Johnson adjustable tappets, zephyr valve springs, block ported and re-leaved, dual point 40 ford distributor, 10 pound aluminum fly wheel, dual exhaust with Hollywood glass packs, four chrome cheater pipes and a 39 Ford floor shifter transmission.  It sounded great with the very light flywheel, 404 cam, cheater pipes!  It had a nice choppy rump, rump idle.  This was my first engine build and engine swap.  Putting a V8 in an old Ford "A" is not easy when you are only sixteen.  The V8 power also required that I be able to stop so I installed a new hydraulic brake system to replace the Model A mechanical system.  I found the cool 1932 Ford radiator shell for $10.   Yes, it has El Lobo painted on the side!   But that was way cool then!  

1940 Ford Deluxe
Circa 1960 Port Angeles, Washington

A 1940 Ford Deluxe was my second car.  I swapped in the engine from my Model A and added Offenhauser 11:1 heads, dual exhaust with Hollywood glass packs and a 39 Ford floor shifter transmission.   If you are thinking all of the wheels looked the same in the 60s, it's because they came off of the Model A.

1960 Ford
Circa 1962 Seattle, Washington

I don't have any pictures of my next car a 1955 Ford but in 1962 I bought a 1960 Ford with a 292 V8 engine.   I added a T Bird four barrel carburetor, dual exhaust with Hollywood glass packs and a three speed transmission floor shift conversion. Of course the front end was lowered two inches.  I got tickets for the car being too low?  In 1962 this was almost like having a brand new car!

1960 El Camino
Circa 1964 Seattle, Washington

In 1963 I traded the 60 Ford in for a 1960 El Camino powered by a hot 283.  In 1965 I  built a new engine using a Corvette 283, 1965 Corvette 375 HP 30/30 solid lifter cam, Carter AFB carb on Corvette high-rise intake, Hedman headers, Mallory Rev-pole dual point distributor, light aluminum fly wheel and BW T10 close ratio four speed.  It wasn't super fast but it sounded really, really, good!   

   

That's me at age twenty-one checking out my new El Camino.

1978 The Sports Car Bug Hits

In 1978 the sports car bug attacked and I bought my first sports car, a 1978 280 Z with a 5 speed.   The 280 was not very fast but a really well engineered car.   I drove it for five years and 90k miles with few problems.   Sold it for $1,000 less than its new price.

 

The 280 Z was sold In 1983 and I bought a new 1984 300 ZX Turbo 5 speed.  Zero to sixty in 6.9 seconds.  Not super fast but OK.  The 84 ZX turned out to be a maintenance and reliability problem so it had to go!       

 

In 1985 the 1983 300 was replaced with the new 1986 300 ZX Turbo 5 speed.  Nissan really got it right in 86!  I sold the Z in 2003 and it ran and looked like new.