Well dear readers, Road Race Replicas has gone and done it again! The little firm in Washington that got me into this hobby introduced a radical new creation this year, and after waiting to bit to check on the market, I’ve jumped in with both feet to acquire no less than 4 examples, the first of which is about to hit the track!
It is just a fact that a lot of gearheads of the Gen-X era are fans of the cars that were built 10-25 years before they were born. Your humble blogger, who came into this world in the final days of the golden era of the muscle car, is obviously no exception. If you’ve never given any thought to why this is, it makes sense with only a cursory examination…
The 1980’s were a pretty awesome time to be a kid in the Western World; we had great music, great TV shows and movies, great styles, and the future seemed pretty bright (little did we know). Yet, one thing that was most definitely NOT great about the 80’s was the cars. Like most other enthusiasts of the era I was all about the cars of the 1950’s and ‘60’s because those were the only ones that were actually cool; they not only looked better than anything on the road at the time, but they also performed significantly better than the cars that were available new, after 2 decades of government meddling had nearly destroyed the industry and neutered the selection of offerings at your local dealership.
There, were, however, some notable exceptions to this: the Jaguar XJ6 Series III, the Mercedes-Benz C126, the BMW 6 and 7 series, and the Aston Martin V8 come to my mind immediately (and of course the 911 and 930 turbo and the 928 for those of you who like Porsches). Note, though, that that short list I just ran through of the few good cars of the era are all European, making us wonder: what was a proud American to drive in this era of emissions-choked limitations? There was the C4 Corvette, of course, introduced late in 1983 as a 1984 model year, but it was still having the bugs worked out, and a lot of us didn’t like that chintzy digital dash business. There was one other option: something as sleek as a Lamborghini, but with the thunder of the muscle cars of the past: the DeTomaso Pantera GT5!
Rising from the ashes of the original joint venture with Ford from 1971 to ’74 when you could buy a Pantera at your local Lincoln-Mercury dealership complete with a Ford factory warranty, half Argentinian/half Italian racing driver turned car designer turned entrepreneur Alejandro de Tomaso wasn’t about to let his company and his car die when FoMoCo ended their partnership as the oil embargo and ever increasing regulations made the Pantera impractical to continue to back. The GT5 carried on the formula of the original car well into the 80’s after the “official” relationship with Ford was severed and their plentiful, proven “Windsor” 351 power plant was taken out of production in the States. DeTomaso smartly sourced a nearly identical engine from Ford of Australia, and reinvented the Pantera as a high-end supercar with full Italian leather interior and body mods reminiscent of the Lamborghini Countach of the same era. With tires nearly a foot wide and sumptuous appointments within, DeTomaso aped the other Italian marques by offering what was essentially a “budget supercar,” retailing for around $72,000 – not cheap in 1985, but a far cry from the $150,000 of a Ferrari Testarossa! With its hyper-tuned Ford powerplant mated to a ZF 5-speed box, the Pantera GT5 could smoke a 308/328 GTB or a 928 and could keep up with a 930 or a Countach, and offer easy serviceability besides; something those “other guys” couldn’t dream of!
Followers of the HO-scale racing hobby are likely already well aware of what I’m talking about here, but in case you are not, these snapshots from the web pages where I bought the cars are hopefully getting you ready for what’s coming soon to Drag City!
Hummm, this is an interesting development indeed! The models are beautiful and is that a special themed tournament I smell blowing in the wind? 🙂