The '80s supercar you forgot for half the price of a Lamborghini Countach

The Story

The Pantera is an oft-forgotten, much-misunderstood supercar. Driving the rare GT5-S version shows it deserves its place among the greats.

‘ELVIS SHOT HIS.’ This quote from Car magazine’s legendary The Good, The Bad and the Ugly listings section and the apocryphal tale of The King opening fire on his Pantera when it refused to start has a lot to answer for. So too does the ‘poor man’s Countach’ label the Pantera has been given over the years, frequently by people who haven’t driven one. Unfairly?. We’re about to find out.

If you’re a student of supercar culture then you’ll know the Pantera is very much its own car; one of the most charismatic and enigmatic of the genre’s golden era. Alejandro De Tomaso’s Ford V8-powered supercar may have lacked the breeding of its Modenese contemporaries from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati but it never wanted for visual or aural drama.

The Pantera (Panther) was conceived as an image-boosting exercise for Ford in the early 1970s, filling the glamour vacuum left by the Le Mans-winning GT40. For expediency, its development was outsourced to De Tomaso in Italy. Ford engines were a given, of course, the 5.8-litre V8 supplying 330bhp and plenty of low-down torque through a ZF five-speeder.

A prototype (called simply the 351) was shown at the 1970 New York Show. Styled by Ghia’s Tom Tjaarda, with chassis development carried out by ex-Lamborghini engineer Giampaolo Dallara, the design was well received and showed great promise. With the longitudinally-installed V8 sitting ahead of the rear axle, it presented the intriguing prospect of being a major-league exotic – with all the style, performance and drama of its Italian contemporaries – but without the highly-strung temperament.

The Pantera went on sale in 1971. Unhappily, early cars developed a reputation for being poorly made and unreliable. To cut a long and rip-roaring story criminally short, after a blockbusting start under majority Ford ownership, the Pantera sold like hot cakes – some 6000 between 1971 and 1974, but terrible quality issues, including rust and engine overheating, meant Ford was continually paying to have them fixed under warranty.

The ’70s oil crisis together with strict new US crash and emissions regulations added to Ford’s pain, so much so that, having tried to solve the problems by buying Alejandro de Tomaso out of his remaining 20 per cent stake, Ford threw in the towel completely and sold the whole business back to de Tomaso for a nominal fee.

For sheer presence, the wide-arch GT5 is hard to beat. It is a sensational-looking machine, made all the more gobsmacking by the vast, deep-dish 15x10in front and 15x13in rear Campagnolo alloys wrapped with 285/40 VR15 and 345/35 VR15 tyres, the rears being the same size as those fitted to the Lamborghini Countach QV. If anything, the Pantera looks even more extreme, thanks to the sheer amount of tread visible when following the car.

With its ruched leather and glossy panels of wood veneer, the cockpit is unexpectedly reminiscent of a Maserati Biturbo’s, though this makes more sense when you realise Alejandro de Tomaso also owned Maserati at the time. The driving position is cramped, thanks to significant intrusion from the left-hand wheelarch, heavily offset pedals and an equally oddball steering wheel position. As a result, you have to sit slightly skewed in the seat with your left leg drawn back so your foot is almost out of the footwell, or stretched out and stuffed beneath the clutch pedal. Neither is ideal and I would imagine it’s nigh impossible to do either if you’re 6ft or more.

The engine is the heart of any supercar, but in this Pantera it is an all-pervading source of decibels and wonderment. Strange to tell, considering the Pantera’s early bond with Ford, these later cars didn’t benefit from US-supplied V8s because the legendary 351 (5.8-litre) Cleveland engines were no longer made in the US. For a while De Tomaso sourced them through Australia, where they were still made, but when they too dried up, the GT5‑S switched to the 351 Windsor V8.

The car tested here, a GT5-S from 1984, is running a Windsor. Good for 320bhp according to a recent dyno run, it sounds like a phalanx of Japanese war drums at idle. People get sniffy about the Pantera’s reliance on what was effectively a crate engine, but I’d defy anyone to stand behind it and not break into a Jack Nicholson grin. It’s nothing short of an homage to internal combustion.

Why It Matters

With its ruched leather and glossy panels of wood veneer, the cockpit is unexpectedly reminiscent of a Maserati Biturbo’s, though this makes more sense when you realise Alejandro de Tomaso also owned Maserati at the time.

CarMotion Daily’s Take

Alejandro De Tomaso’s Ford V8-powered supercar may have lacked the breeding of its Modenese contemporaries from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati but it never wanted for visual or aural drama. The detail bears tracking. Markets rarely reward single announcements — execution over the next two to four quarters is what closes the gap between press release and customer. How this lands depends less on the announcement itself and more on the rollout, dealer support, and after-sales story behind it. Specifics on pricing, availability, and regional rollout will tell us whether this moves from headline to delivery. Independent verification and follow-up coverage from rival outlets tend to firm up the picture within days.