Fast Five 1972 De Tomaso Pantera GTS

Base	Tomica De Tomaso Pantera GTS
Mods	Body mod, wheel swap, full resin copy
Card	5th Gen card w/rounded corners & punch, 2014, JS034, F&F5-03
Qty Made	26 incl Prototype

I figured after doing the Grand Sport and GT40 I'd better find a way to make that awesome Pantera from the same scene, especially since it's one of my all-time favorite cars! I did a LOT of research on diecast Panteras and found that several companies including Welly, Tomica, Matchbox, and Hot Wheels all had some version of the car, though none were really all that correct. I tried making one out of La Fasta from Hot Wheels, I located some Hong Kong generics that were close, but finally in the end it was the Tomica car that won the base car challenge.

The film cars were put on eBay around the time I was doing my research and I found out they used a 1971 and 1972 year car for the scene; One for the yank off the train and the other to drive away. I liked the '72 rear deck lid better so I figured that was the one to do.

I modified the original car in about 4 hours, grinding off the body ground effects and filling in the little bolt holes for the fenders. I also completely rebuilt the rear deck lid and permanently attached it to the car. Lots of metal grinding and sanding! A few coats of primer and it was looking pretty nice!

The wheels are actually leftovers from the same GT40s and such that I used to source wheels for the Grand Sports. I'm glad I kept them and that they worked so well!

When I started collecting base Tomica cars I came to the conclusion that at an average of $12-15 it would be FAR too costly to acquire 25+ of these original cars, now dating back around 30 years or more. I bought a total of 6 cars, 4 of which were in really good condition, and the others were pretty rough. I decided to try to make a 100% resin car out of all the parts, and it came out just beautifully! The interior and chassis were one mold which I cast in black, and I got 2 perfect windshields and made a single mold out of that, and then the body mold. Took a couple weeks to knock out enough parts but in the end it saved me hundreds!! So just 4 cars actually have some original Tomica parts. The surviving 2 cars are in my collection now!

Everything went pretty much to plan paint and decal-wise, and at the last minute I decided to put rear glass in the cars. The opening wasn't that obvious but I figured I'd kick myself later sacrificing quality like that. I also added weights to the chassis again so they don't feel like cheap plastic crap! Carding 4 cars at a time is really nice. Who knew a couple bucks' worth of binder clips would save SO much time. This project was finished May 5th, 2014!