Drew is correct on a number of
Drew is correct on a number of issues, the car did not handle well and you can easily spend a few bucks, but for logical reasons! Early in the car's life someone stole the original Campagnolo magnesium wheels and the owner replaced them with Weld Wheels that had totally wrong back space and the car had very old H rated tires. The wrong backspace totally messed up the suspension and steering geometry. Someone had run into an immoveable object that smashed part of the lower front A arm mount. This caused the car not to have equal weight on the front wheels and less weight on the diver side back wheel.
After getting the A arm mount fixed, correct very wide wheels, modern z rated tires (335/35ZR17s on the back and 245/45ZR16s on the front), new shocks, springs, Euro ride height (lower than US cars), rebuilding the complete suspension using Graphite polyurethane bushings, rebuilding the drive train, uprights, new ½ shafts and rebuilding the brakes it handles pretty darn well. I’m not complaining about all the work, because it has been well worth the effort. I also knew before I bought the car from Drew that I would be rebuilding a lot of stuff. Any thirty year old car will need some rebuild work if it hasn’t already been done.
I did most all the rebuild work myself by doing one small project at a time over a leisurely five year time span so the car was on the road most of the time. Now that all the work is done the car handles very well and drives like it is on rails and is very fast.
The totally stock 71 Pantera had a tested top speed of 160 MPH and a 0 to 60 time of 5.5 seconds. It could stop in 112 feet from 60 MPH. Most of the Panteras that you see on the road today no longer have stock engines and will be around 4.6 seconds 0 – 60 or better. In the Pantera community modified engines are the norm.
In 1981 Popular Mechanics Magazine did a big million dollar performance car test of all the major exotics. The stock $60k 1981 GTS Pantera was the overall winner. The Pantera ran the slalom test in 8.91 seconds, the 512 in 9.00 seconds and the 308 in 9.49. The Pantera lap time was 1:55:9, the 512 was 1:57:2 and the 308 was 2:03:0. The overall order was Pantera, M1, Porsche 928, Countach, 512 and then the 308, etc. Sterling Moss and Phil Hill joined the PM staff for the test. Those of you that have raced at the Pocono Raceway know that the Panteras do pretty darn well on the track!
Stephen is correct too! The Pantera is very addictive, if you don’t want to own one stay away from them!
Mike Dailey
http://www.PanteraPlace.com