Eight years ago I took a risk by buying a car without an engine. The car was Carroll Shelby’s own De Tomaso Pantera, an out-of-this-world supercar that he built in the 1980s, in secret. Buying this mysterious machine ended up leading to one of my life’s greatest automotive adventures, involving discovering the car’s original twin-turbo V8 engine in a junkyard, and then bringing it back to life with the help of the man who had originally tuned it almost 40 years ago: Gale Banks.
Running Galpin Ford means my family has had the fortune of getting to know some seriously cool car-people, including Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca. The two were everything you think they were and more — charming, dynamic car guys who appreciated things that go fast.
One Iacocca story that my dad used to like telling people was about a compliment the Father Of The Ford Mustang paid our dealership:
Bert loved to retell the story of how one particular porter used to line up all the cars so that the bumpers and radio antennas were in perfect rows. On one Galpin visit, legendary Ford Executive Lee Iacocca noticed the perfectly aligned rows of cars with their evenly extended radio antennas. He stopped in his tracks and exclaimed, “I feel like I should salute!”
When Lee decided he wanted an Iacocca Edition Ford Mustang (expect an article on that soon enough), we raised our hand to handle the mechanical work and to be the exclusive distributor for the 45 cars. I have a few of these, so expect to see a whole article on it soon:
Here’s a photo of my dad next to Lee, whom we had to make feel welcome with our sign (Lee was President at the time; to the right is VP Philip Caldwell):
And this is Lee and me in front of the Scythe custom car we built at Galpin (I’ll be showing you the Scythe in a future article/video; it’s nuts). This was at the Galpin Auto Sports grand opening:
As for Carroll, Galpin’s relationship with him goes way back. He visited us in 1965 and was first directed to our in-house racing champion Ron Hornaday Sr., who asked Carroll to meet with my dad. This led to a nearly 60-year friendship, and ultimately made Galpin a critical cornerstone in the success of the Shelby Cobra Roadster, Mustang GT350/GT500 and others. Here’s a little quote from our upcoming book:
A Shelby American franchise agreement was quickly reached, and it wasn’t long before a Shelby car carrier brought the first of 10 1965 GT350s, including serial numbers 5S492 (the Barn Find on page 60) and 5S537. The batch was delivered on Tuesday, March 16, 1965, three months before other Los Angeles-area Ford dealers received theirs (both Mel Burns Ford and Warren-Anderson Ford received their first 1965 in June). When the Shelby car carrier arrived at Galpin, Carroll was there in person during the delivery to meet with Bert and Ron. Just a month later, on April 15, 1965, Galpin’s first 289 Cobra (#CSX2556) was delivered to the dealership.
We actually became the first Shelby dealer in California, with Carroll later saying: “It was Galpin Motors and Tasca Ford that were the two Ford dealers that really got me up and running with selling Shelbys.”
These relationships represented one of the reasons why I was so charmed by this 1987 DeTomaso Pantera. I was also drawn in by the car’s mysterious history; the story I heard is that this vehicle was being used as a bit of a test-bed for the Dodge Viper, with then-Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca working with Carroll (who was already partnering with Chrysler in the 1980s) to hotrod an existing supercar by Italian company De Tomaso.
Iacocca had already worked with De Tomaso back when he was with Ford. Back around 1970, Ford Motor Company purchased a majority stake in the Italian sports car company, which is why Panteras have Ford V8s and why they were sold stateside at Lincoln-Mercury dealerships. My dad was actually pretty amped about the prospect of selling Panteras. “I really wanted that car…I knew we could sell a ton of them in the Southern California marketplace,” he said about the Italian-American supercar. “I could already see them on our showroom floor, and I figured we could steal our share of Ferrari and Corvette sales.”
We didn’t have a Lincoln store back then, so we never did sell Panteras, but now — over a half century later — we’re selling The Pantera. I bought it from Carroll Shelby’s personal collection after he passed, then I miraculously found the original Chrysler V8 in a junkyard:
Discovering that motor was a rush. I knew, once I had the car, that I wanted to at least try to track down Shelby’s turbocharged V8 (I’m not entirely sure what I would have done had I not found it; maybe I’d have kept the car engineless, or maybe I’d have replicated the engine for our show, Car Kings — either way, I would have kept looking for that motor). I got in touch with my cousin Steve McCord and told him “Let’s try to find this engine.” Steve had a great relationship with Shelby Enterprises, which wasn’t located too far from our dealership; he called everyone there, and after a while one employee pointed to a junkyard here in California and said something to the effect of: “If we took it out, it’s probably in this junkyard. They used to buy stuff when they were done.”
So we headed to that yard, and I can’t tell you how excited I was to find the heart of this Italian-American Holy Grail. This was the greatest automotive find of my life — a needle in a haystack, and, at least when I’d first bought the car, I truly hadn’t even known which haystack to look in.
One we had the motor, I had our in-house Hot Rod Hall-of-Famer, Dave Shuten, lead our restoration shop, Galpin Auto Sports, to bring Shelby’s DeTomaso back to its former glory, even bringing the vehicle to the man who had tuned in decades prior: Gale Banks. Here’s a clip showing our trip to Gale Banks to tune the Pantera:
Here’s how Banks’ company described the Pantera when getting the word out about the episode of DRIVEN (later called Car Kings):
Shelby built a De Tomaso Pantera as a secret project with Lee Iacocca. It was powered by a Banks Twin-Turbo liquid-intercooled Chrysler engine. With Gale Banks’ help the car was restored to its original glory and will make its TV debut Monday, March 30 at 9pm on the premiere episode of Discovery’s DRIVEN. Round of applause to Beau Boeckmann and the Galpin Auto Sports – G.A.S. crew.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering how the thing actually drives. Well, David Tracy got behind the wheel (see the video at the top of this article). I’ll let him tell you.
The Shelby De Tomaso Pantera Blew My Mind
I had just come back from driving the 815 horsepower Ford Mustang GTD around Thermal Race Track, and I was a bit concerned. I hadn’t had enough time to recalibrate my butt-dyno to its “vintage car” setting, and this De Tomaso Pantera I was set to drive was a 1970s/1980s era performance car. In other words, I was hopping from a fast, modern race car to what was almost certainly going to be a smog-era slowpoke.
Going into driving Carroll Shelby’s old De Tomaso Pantera with this mentality set my mind up to be completely and totally blown.
I met Beau in the Galpin Auto Sports parking lot, and he walked me around the car, which clearly meant a lot to him given that he had revived it with its original, 600+ horsepower V8 heart. In person, the car is shockingly gorgeous. The successor to the De Tomaso Mangusta, the Pantera was the design-brainchild of Detroit-born Ghia designer Tom Tjaarda, and he absolutely nailed it. This specific car Shelby bought was the GT5-S variant, which came out for 1985 as the integrated widebody (not fiberglass), big-winged version of an already beautiful machine.
Hopping inside, I was greeted by a very 1970s-era Italian interior, with gorgeous white leather everywhere, and a nice gated shifter in the center. That shifter, by the way felt a bit stiff going between gears, and what was also stiff was the steering wheel, as the car has no power steering to help rotate those absurdly wide front tires.
Turning the key quickly fired up the twin-turbo V8 Chrysler engine; I was surprised by how fast the engine sprung to life, and I was loving the exhaust burbles. But as I cranked at that steering wheel with all my might, muscled the shifter into gear, and slowly crept down the traffic-filled streets of Van Nuys, listening to that burbling exhaust, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I was experiencing a calm before the storm. That that motor squeezed tightly between the Pantera’s aluminum body-sides just wanted to go.
And so after dealing with traffic and complimenting the car’s surprisingly compliant ride, Beau and I reached an open road, I moved my right foot off the brake and onto the gas, lifted off the clutch, and experienced one of the greatest automotive nirvanas I’ve ever felt.
VROOOOOM!!! The engine behind me pushed my back with prodigious force, propelling me to what felt like warpspeed, all the while feeding the most incredible symphony of turbocharged V8 glory into my cochleas.
“David you’re kinda freaking me out I gotta close my eyes. David, you’re scaring me dude!“, Beau yelled!
Wow!
Having just come from an 815 horsepower Ford Mustang GTD, I was not expecting this from a 40 year-old car. My brain had been conditioned to think 1980s performance cars are usually slow and unrefined, and that when someone says an old car has 600 horsepower it usually has maybe 2/3 that.
But then I realized something very obvious: Yes, this car is 40 years old, but in what world was I going to be unimpressed by a car developed by Lee Iacocca, Carroll Shelby, and Gale Banks? These are the greatest automotive titans ever, and I should have known: If they were going to create a car, that car was going to be epic. Credit, too, goes to Galpin Auto Sports and Hot Rod Hall-of-Famer Dave Shuten, because this engine and the chassis both felt remarkably tight and smooth.
The car weirdly reminded me of the Ford Mustang GTD I had just driven, and certainly not something with a one-off old 1980s carbureted motor.
It’s so strange having gone into this expecting a modesty-quick (but relatively slow) vintage car, but then getting an absolute monster that also feels weirdly refined. On the highway, the Shelby Pantera felt like it could cruise comfortably for ages. But when my big toe touched the gas pedal to making a passing maneuver, that amazing symphony and that insane thrust from that engine behind my head — it was so remarkable that I can comfortably say Carroll Shelby’s De Tomaso Pantera is one of the most fun cars I’ve ever driven.
Some say that it was somehow involved in the development of the Dodge Viper, and while I’m unsure how true that is, what I am sure of is that, when you’re on the throttle, this car feels like it has the soul of a Viper. It’s an absolute jackhammer — a loud, violent, but smooth-revving jackhammer that just forces the world ahead of you right down your throat, whether you’re ready for it or not. And yet, perhaps unlike the Viper, this thing can cruise for days.
And so, for today’s installment of Should I Sell It, what do you think? Beau seems to be leaning one direction, but he’s not 100% made up his mind yet.
[Ed Note: This is part of The Autopian’s new series Should I Sell It, in which Galpin’s CEO Beau Boeckmann decides which of his 100 amazing Holy Grail cars to sell at his RM Sotheby’s auction in November. Expect to learn more about these amazing machines weekly here at The Autopian and on YouTube. -DT].
The answer to “should I sell it?” really has a WHEN? Component.
The car either belongs with someone who has the time and resources to drive and maintain it on a regular basis, or someone by like Leno or Bill Harrah who can preserve it but keep it running.
If you aren’t that someone, and your heirs aren’t, then sell.
The sale could fund anything from a bevy of Borgwards to a passel of Peugeots or maybe half a Bugatti.
Fantastic story, and I voted keep – it combines seemingly everything about the Shelby ethos and history into a single, real-world-usable and, importantly, visible package!
(as in, I’m guessing none of the Daytona coupes are being driven on highways, ever, where the rest of us can vicariously enjoy them. Won’t someone think of the autopians?!)
Beau, I think that one’s a keeper!