This DeTomaso Pantera hadn’t been on the road for decades, so long locked away in a trailer nobody had the keys to open it anymore. As it turned out, the car was one of the last great Cannonball racers, much to the ebullient joy of the two old men who finally shed some light on this thing.
This 1972 Pantera ran the 1980 U.S. Express and was last registered for the road in New Hampshire in ‘80/’81, as the crew of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunters discovered in their most recent episode.
How exactly the car came to sit for so long isn’t exactly clear. The episode before this shows an entire barn filled with interesting cars that had been projects for someone who died before completing them.
As for this Pantera, the host talks about how it could be worth anything from $50,000 to $100,000 if it was stripped down and restored to its original, clean ‘72 shape. That would mean stripping it of its poster car-style fenders and other modifications of the day.
While I think that’d be a shame, and it’d be much more fun to see this thing live on as a reminder of Disco Era glitz, and it could have some serious chop out of its old Ford V8.
But that’s not what’s important. What’s really great is to watch these old guys beam with joy as they uncover this car. “That’s a big ass carb,” the host Tom Cotter remarks at one point. “Yeesh.” That’s gonna be one of us someday with a Motorex Skyline, I’m sure.