CAT from the CRADLE

An early pre-L’ Pantera demonstrates a visceral yet delicate nature at odds with the De Tomaso's unfriendly reputation

- CHARLIE CALDERWOOD 

Peering through the gap in the steering wheel at the obscured tachometer, you put the hammer down and the revs of the coarse V8 behind your head climb furiously. The engine feels as if it can keep on revving, but the redline disagrees. Dip the clutch and the car dives forward slightly, freed from the accelerative forces pushing it on to its haunches, but the gearlever can be thrown, with a satisfying clack through its stainless-steel gate, quickly into the next ratio then more power sends the car squatting on its rear axle again. The front end visibly lifts, feeling increasingly floaty and encouraging you to brake hard before the approaching corner. Downshift straight to second directly upwards from the lever’s resting state and it’s a case of pitching the car in with as much delicacy as your talent can muster, balancing the fiery power of the engine with adhesion to the greasy road.

For the layperson, the De Tomaso Pantera transforms any local B-road into the Circuit dela Sarthe, conjuring images of Ford GT40s, Ken Miles and night-time motorsport heroics. It’s slightly embarrassing, as a grown adult, to admit to fantasies of driving racing cars, but that’s exactly what the Pantera inspires.

By the late 60s, Ford was desperate for an exotic-looking halo car to compete with the Chevrolet Corvette, notjust to stop the General from gaining a march, but also to capitalise on the truly remarkable sporting success of the Shelby-Ford GT40s at Le Mans. American buyers, now awakened to the glamour and speed of European endurance racing, wanted a piece of that success on their driveways.