De Tomaso Pantera: Time For Coffee?

When your company car allowance gets pretty exotic!

Trying to decide on a company car nowadays can be a pretty tedious task - few performance models fit the bill and fewer still elicit enough emotion to make the man maths required to reach them seem worthwhile. But what if your company gave you an allowance which enabled you to pick almost any car you desired - what would you choose then?

It may not be so likely these days, but it's exactly what happened to Gary Corcoran back in 1983 - after three years of employment, the company he worked for offered him a $250 company car allowance, serious money for the time. Many of his colleagues opted for Mercedes and BMWs, but Gary was more intrigued by exotics. Good for Gary.

Having considered a number of Corvettes, he even went to look at a Ferrari Dino but, as fate would have it, whilst driving down the Pacific Coast Highway he came across a De Tomaso Pantera in one of Ferrari's very own dealerships. The styling appealed to Gary and, after he found out that it had a Ford-derived engine mounted to a ZF gearbox, he had to have it.

Despite having paid the same price as a Dino ($20,000 back then), Gary says that he doesn't regret buying the Pantera at all. Life eventually got in the way and Pantera ownership stopped being a priority but, with his son beginning to show an interest, Gary set about restoring to its original glory. If you can keep a car like this in the family then you really should, right?

Watch the video here.