Alejandro De Tomaso founded his eponymous company in 1959 in Modena, Italy, initially focusing on building race cars. These early cars were successful and subsequently attracted the attention of one Carroll Shelby, who contracted DeTomaso to build a new sports car for Can-Am racing. Shelby was looking for a successor to his Cobra race car, which famously combined a lightweight British sports car chassis and a powerful Ford V8 engine. Ultimately, the De Tomaso/Shelby project collapsed after just one prototype was built, but it paved the way for De Tomaso to launch his own supercar with a similar formula.
De Tomaso’s first V8-engined road car was the Mangusta, but it was the Mangusta’s successor, the Pantera, that would prove to be the most successful. Sold in America through a partnership with Ford, the Pantera was driven by a host of famous faces, including Elvis Presley, who once shot his car when it refused to start. Reliability was a consistent issue for early Panteras, and electrical and rust issues were common.
Despite its flaws, the Pantera enjoyed a remarkably long production run, commencing in 1970 and ending in 1993. The deal with Ford only lasted until 1975, and after that point, most Panteras were sold in Europe rather than America. However, they all still featured a Ford V8, a Cleveland in early cars, with later examples switching to a Windsor. Power outputs varied by year and territory, with the most powerful examples producing nearly 400 horsepower.
