In the last 17 years Formotion has shown up in and with some very cool people and places - from Bud Lite Champ Boats, NASCAR, Formula 1 and now we find out even Jay Leno's 1971 De Tomaso Pantera! How cool is that - we just had to share! Here are a couple shots from the YouTube Video. These are just captured screen shots and not the actual video.
Fresh from showing up Enzo Ferrari at Le Mans, Henry Ford II approached Alejandro De Tomaso with an eye toward taking on the Italian exotics again, this time in the showroom. This was Henry the Deuce's better idea: If De Tomaso and his connections (at that point, he owned Carrozzerias Ghia and Vignale) could design and build the car, Ford would provide the V-8 power and sell the car stateside through its vast dealership network.
And so was born the Pantera. Styled by American expatriate Tom Tjaarda, and designed by Gianpaolo Dallara of Lamborghini Miura fame, the GT was powered by a Ford 351-cu.in. Cleveland V-8, mated to a German-made ZF five-speed gearbox.
The Pantera was intended to be a high-volume car, by supercar standards, and Ford contributed its considerable expertise in keeping production costs down. Unlike its predecessor, the Mangusta, the Pantera used unit-body construction in place of a separate tube chassis. Suspension was by conventional double A-arms all around, with anti-roll bars at both ends.