Lot 388: 1975 De Tomaso Pantera GT4

Former racing driver, Alejandro de Tomaso, has owned some of the most famous names in Italian engineering including Maserati, Innocenti, Benelli, Moto Guzzi, Vignale and Ghia. Cars under his own name raced in Formula One in the early 1960's and he showed a number of prototype road cars before putting one, the Vallelunga, into limited production in 1965.With Alessandro De Tomaso an avid fan of racing, it came as little surprise when a competition version of the pantera was announced late in 1971. It would run in the FIA's Group 4 category, a class dominated by Porsche and Chevrolet that cleaned up against ill-equipped opposition. De Tomaso's pantera GT4 would make its mark despite only the briefest period of works involvement.The GT4, with its 5.7 litre 500 hp engine, was also intended to be driven on the street and people who were not able to purchase one of the eight Group 4 or one of the six GT4 produced, bought a street Pantera and turned it into a race car. The best ranking ever obtained by a Pantera was sixteenth in 1972 Le Mans race recorded by the Belgium team of Du Bois, the same team that raced eight times in the 24 hours race. There have also been two important victories for Panteras both in Imola and Hockenheim in 1973.The factory only produced 6 GT4's, so original factory examples are an extremely rare car. This Pantera GT4 was converted from a GTS model to GT4 spec fifteen years ago with bills totalling over 100,000. The car has been fitted with many upgrades including Koni shocks, GT4 wheel arches and magnesium wheels, power steering, bigger brakes, oil cooler, snake pit exhaust and 2 carbon fibre fire walls. Two years ago the engine was upgraded by Pantera Performance in the US to produce over 588 bhp with dyno sheets to prove the enormous output. Along with the car are bills and a history file detailing 15 years of work and maintenance. The car is finished in red and black with a matching interior and is described by the vendor to be in excellent condition having recently won the Auto Italia concours in 2004.