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A Dentist's Perfection Dr.Tim Butson, a dentist in Colorado bought this Pantera but knew he wanted it built a certain way. Without taking any time to drive the car in its as-bought state, he had it shipped to Don Byars in California for a complete re-do. The brief he gave Byars was " to build
a stylish, fast car that is dead reliable."
Don Byars achieved that, creating a late model (U.S.-spec. late model
)Pantera that looks like an early model with small bumpers, painted
black. The more you look at this car, the more you appreciate its subtleties.
The car took eleven months to complete, as it was being done along
with a number of other Panteras in Byar's shop. |
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body was taken down to primer and repainted a deep red in two stage
acrylic enamel, from PPG. The
suspension was completely gone through with heavy duty Alden double
adjustable shocks, and the iron bits of the suspension replaced with
aluminum billet pieces. There is a 1"
diameter sway bar both in the front and
rear.
Special attention was paid to the mounting of the "camber bar" which is what Byars calls the "spreader bar." This bar is a two tube unit, the upper tube about 6 inches above the lower one so that it does a doubly good job of both holding the inner fender wells apart and adding to body rigidity.
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added 1/8" steel reinforcements all around the four points where the
bar attaches so that it doesn't just concentrate its loads right on the
attachment point, where if the body were really loaded on a race course,
it could tear loose.
The brakes are Wilwood 4-piston units, as used on NASCAR stockers. They used "curved vane" rotors, the name referring to the vanes between the rotor surfaces The wheels are by Marino Perna (from Pantera East), measuring 8" x 17" in front and 11" x 17". Tires are Pirelli P-Zeros, measuring 235-40-17 and 335-35-17 in the rear. |
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In
the current fashion of street cars being race-inspired, the car has a roll
cage, not just a roll bar. The roll cage is bolted to gussets underneath
the body--small steel plates, so it doesn't depend on the thin floor
for strength but on the added steel plates. Another safety bit is using
5-point shoulder harnesses.
The stock steering wheel has been replaced with a LaCarra removable wheel, which discourages thieves who don't have enough imagination to figure out how to drive a car with out the benefit of a steering wheel.
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The
Engine
The engine is a 377 cu. in. stroker, with Yates 302-B heads. The engine has a high rise aluminum Roush manifold, Ross pistons with 10.2:1 compression, H-beam rods, a steel crank which is balanced, and a Holley 700 cfm double pumper Holley. The headers are GTS as are the mufflers. Don Byars rates the engine at about 450 hp., which is about 140 more than Ford claimed back in '71 for the Pantera. To handle the power of the engine, Byars added Spicer half-shafts that are stronger than the stock ones. The bushings were replaced by polyurethane units. The engine compartment has been treated to a wrinkle finish on the fender wells, so that the occasional drop of oil spilled there-on won't show. There are two electric, “sucker” fans behind the slanted radiator, both operated thermostatically, the second one going on when the air conditioning is flipped on. |
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The
Interior
The seats are full leather, in GT-5 "wrinkle" style. The doors also have the wrinkle-leather treatment but with the added highlight of wood veneer tinted with a kind of gray see through coat so that it almost looks like marble. The same treatment is used on the dash. The floor is covered with high quality Wilton wool carpeting. To make the interior more comfortable, Don Byars moved the A/C condenser up to the front of the car to where it can more effective by being in the air-stream rather than at the tail of the car, where its air intake capability was dubious. The new system uses a Sanyo rotary compressor. The radio is an Alpine with quite a bit of attention paid to the sound output, including a 8" Kicker subwoofer, a Crossfire amp and a 2 MB Quartz speakers with crossovers and tweeters. All that takes up almost all the room under the hood, but the car's owner places a high premium on sound quality so where else could the electro-goodies go? Watt-wise, the system produces 100 watts per channel.
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In
sum...
Altogether, we're sure that there's enough money been spent on this car to buy another unrestored Pantera, but we're confident that when the good doctor takes delivery, he'll find that the results are just what the doctor ordered: basically an all-new Pantera that just happens to look like the 71-'74 U.S. spec. version.
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