De Tomaso Pantera GTS Prototipo Tony Mantas

With the Pantera, De Tomaso presented the third road sports car in the brand’s history in 1971. Previously, there was the four-cylinder Vallelunga and then 400 examples of the Mangusta. To serve more markets, company founder Alejandro de Tomaso teamed up with Ford. The engines and various other technical components of the Pantera came from the US company. The basis was the further developed platform of the Mangusta, but with a new suspension and a body by Ghia. This design house belonged to Alejandro de Tomaso. As payment for the engines, it went to Ford in 1970. In the USA, the Pantera was in the showrooms of major Ford dealers. Initially, sales were good. However, due to Ford’s withdrawal from the project, from the mid-1970s onward they sometimes languished in the double digits per year.

One-off for Constantin ‘Tony’ Mantas

Wild Italian sports cars with plenty of power have always attracted an illustrious audience. At De Tomaso, Constantin ‘Tony’ Anastase Mantas was one of them. He was a close friend of the company’s boss and was born in Zitsa, Greece, in 1942. As a manager of actors and musicians, he had offices in Athens, Geneva and Milan. His fleet already included the unique De Tomaso Mangusta Spider when he ordered a new Pantera GTS in 1975. However, he expressly didn’t want an off-the-peg car, but a tailor-made one-off. So the car received the plastic fender extensions of the Group 4 racing version, a lowering kit, parts of the dashboard and center console in white leather, and an exhaust system without muffler below the rear section without bumper. Added to this was a roof spoiler in the style of the Lancia Stratos HF, a big rear spoiler and a deep front spoiler lip.

Various changes done at the factory

Unlike other Panteras, this one-off received its own file at the De Tomaso factory in Modena, where all records of this car were collected. This included the production papers, but also every subsequent invoice for maintenance and further modifications. In addition, there were exact lists of the work and by which employees it was performed. For example, sometime before mid-1976, the Group 4 fenders gave way to independent, angular-curved plastic parts in body color. During 1977, the car was in the factory every second month for work. Presumably, De Tomaso bored the Ford V8 engine to seven liters during this time. On February 5, 1978, the car received a two-tone red and white paint scheme and a large glass rood. Tony Mantas later had this color change and roof fitting reversed.

Confiscated by the police

Tony Mantas received the car on the Italian export license plate ‘EE 60785’, which was valid for one year. He then had the car registered again in the Swiss canton of Ticino with export plates ‘TI 3288Z-77’ before it was again given Italian export plates (EE 3288). From 1979, there are pictures in the vehicle records with green license plates, presumably from Greece. Six years later, the Italian police confiscated the sports car because it was on the road with plates that were no longer valid. Until 1992, the unique car was parked outside in an unprotected police yard before it found a new owner in the greater Bologna area via a judicial auction. He kept it until 2010 and had it completely restored during that time. Tomorrow the auction house Artcurial auctions this unique De Tomaso in the context of an online auction, which should have been a part of Retromobile. The hammer price is expected to be between 180,000 and 220,000 €.

Images: Artcurial, Guido Bissantini, Niklas Hannah