1972 De Tomaso Pantera Gruppo 4. Italian flag
The De Tomaso Pantera is a mid-engine sports car produced by Italian automobile manufacturer De Tomaso from 1971 to 1992.
The Pantera was the automaker’s most popular model, with over 7,000 manufactured over its twenty-year production run.
More than three quarters of the production was sold by American Lincoln-Mercury dealers from 1972 to 1975; after this agreement ended De Tomaso kept manufacturing the car in ever smaller numbers into the early 1990s.
The Pantera was designed by the Italian design firm Carrozzeria Ghia’s American-born designer Tom Tjaarda and replaced the Mangusta. Unlike the Mangusta, which employed a steel backbone chassis, the Pantera’s chassis was of a steel monocoque design, the first instance of De Tomaso using this construction technique.
The car debuted in Modena in March 1970 and was presented at the 1970 New York Motor Show a few weeks later.Approximately a year later the first production cars were sold, and production was increased to three per day.
The first 1971 Pantera models were powered by a 5.8 L (351 cu in) Ford Windsor V8 engine having a power output of 335 PS (246 kW; 330 hp).
The high torque provided by the Ford engine reduced the need for excessive gear changing at low speeds: this made the car much less demanding to drive in urban conditions than many of the locally built offerings.
The 1971 Pantera could accelerate to 97 km/h (60 mph) in 5.5 seconds.
