Australian Sports Sedans Database - Histories And Whereabouts

[bry3500]

Restored by Andrew Keiller and up for sale
$550,000 AUD

Description from owner Paul Halstead

In 1984 my company, De Tomaso Australia, exported Australian made 351 Cleveland V8’s to Italy for the worldwide production of De Tomaso’s. As a result of the export credits earned, I was able to import the range of De Tomaso’s in KDF at reduced duty.

We subsequently assembled these cars adding the Australian V8 and then sold them through my retail outlet called the Toy Shop. We had a large team of mechanics, machinists and engineers as we also serviced Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s etc and built, modified and serviced race cars.

In 1985, I ordered a lightweight body from De Tomaso as the basis for building a car to run in the Australian GT Championship. The body that was received did not meet our requirements by way of quality, and so our designer, Barry Lock (formerly of McLaren) presented a plan to build a full “ground effects” car using the world’s best technology and products. The planned car used the minimum De Tomaso parts required by CAMS for the car to meet the rules of the GT category.

In 1986, the resultant race car called “La Pantera Bianca” or White Panther, in its’ first part year of racing, won all five races contested.

In its final GT championship race at Winton Victoria, the GT cars were joined by the (in theory) faster Sports cars. The Australian gold star champion, Kevin Bartlett, in just his fourth start in the Pantera, lapped the entire field.

In 1987, as we were preparing to contest the full GT Championship, the rules were changed. Rather than destroy our work of art to meet the new restrictive rules, I retired the car undefeated. Today, if the Pantera was allowed to run in the GT class, it would obliterate them!

As I am now too old and certainly not fast enough to do the car justice, I have decided to sell the Pantera including all patterns, drawings and spare parts.