Ford must have still had a bee in their bonnet over the failed attempt to buy Ferrari in the early ‘60s. Henry Ford II wanted a European division that could crank out exotic cars and racing machines. Enzo Ferrari wanted no part of Dearborn, so Henry II took it out on Ferrari by pumping millions of dollars into the World Manufacturing Sports Car Championships and eventually winning the championship several times. What’s odd is that after Ford got the trophy they eventually left sports car racing and Ferrari continued on their winning ways.

So to satisfy their hunger for something Italian, Ford bought the struggling DeTomasso Company. Mr. DeTomasso had been an excellent Ferrari designer before making his own cars, so buying out DeTomasso was another shot at Enzo.

The Pantera was part of the new wave of exotic mid-engine high-performance sports cars. It had great Italian lines and lots of Ford grunt-power. Using the 351 cu. in. "Cleveland" V-8 engine and a ZF fully synchronized 5-speed transaxle with limited slip differential and 4-wheel disc brakes, the Pantera was dripping with sexy Italian sweat.

Naturally, the Pantera was compared to Chevy’s Corvette, but it was really apples and oranges. The Pantera was a very low volume production car compared to Chevrolet building over 38,000 Corvettes in 1969. Zora Arkus Duntov had pitched many mid-engine Corvette prototypes, but wasn’t able to get GM to go along with the tooling expense.

Performance-wise the Pantera ran on par with the Corvette. On a race course the Pantera and Corvette were evenly matched, although the Pantera had very different handling characteristics.

Unfortunately, the Pantera came along just as Detroit’s muscle car party was ending, so Ford and DeTomasso never really had a chance to work out the bugs. For an expensive exotic car, quality and reliability wasn’t what it should have been.

Ford closed the book on the Pantera in 1974, but aftermarket parts suppliers and builders kept the Pantera alive with racing parts and upgrade kits.