A12| Wednesday, March 4, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Cars & Coffee, it drew a lot of attention. Not
only is it very red, it is very loud. A lot of
people had no idea what this car was. When
you get in it, you feel the performance all
around you.
If you are anything close to 6 feet, it is
very snug. The pedals are so close together, I
cannot wear regular sneakers. You’re sur-
rounded by gauges and the dashboard is
leather. A previous owner upgraded the seat
belts to five-point racing harnesses. Even by
today’s standards, it is fast.
The Pantera had been my dream car five
decades ago. It still is today.The De Tomaso Pantera holds cult status among classic car fans. It was a collaboration between
Ford Motor Co. and Italy-based De Tomaso.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ZACK WAJSGRAS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALLIFE & ARTS
MY RIDE| A.J. BAIME
Most People Forgot This Car—He Never Did
He long loved the De Tomaso Pantera—then one day he found a 1972 model waiting in his garage
Dr. David S. Wilkes of Char-
lottesville, Va., 63, dean of the
University of Virginia School of
Medicine, on his 1972 De Tomaso
Pantera, as told to A.J. Baime.
Ten years ago, I was away on
business. I came home and there
was this car, sitting in my ga-
rage—a complete surprise. It
was my dream car. It was one of
those surreal moments. I cannot
explain the feeling, even today.
The story begins when I was a
young man, in the early 1970s. I
was a car nut from the day I was
born, and I was looking at an is-
sue of Road & Track magazine.
There was a write-up of this car
called the Pantera. Ford Motor Co.
had wanted to build something
exotic and Ferrari-esque, so the
company partnered with a firm in
Italy called De Tomaso [which
was based in Ferrari’s hometown
of Modena]. The bodies were
made there and shipped to the
U.S., where the engine—a Ford
351 Cleveland—was installed.
The car had four-wheel disc
brakes, which you did not see of-
ten back then, and a five-speed
transmission when four-speeds
were the norm. The engine was
mounted in the middle behind
the driver. Even the name was
exotic: Pantera. Seeing it in a
magazine was one of those “I
have to have that” feelings. It be-
came the dream car. The Pantera
was priced at about $10,000, less
than a Ferrari would cost, and
Ford sold it through Lincoln-
Mercury dealers, from 1971 to
around the end of 1974.
My wife, Dr. Toni Eldridge
Wilkes, and I met in medical
school, and she was part of my
quest to find one. Over the years
I drove a few. They were always
gorgeous, but mechanically they
were not in good shape. These
cars had reliability and rust
problems like crazy.
Then around 2010 I took off for a busi-
ness trip. My son, David Jr., who got the
car bug from me, was searching online
when he found a Pantera for sale by a col-
lector in Washington state. My son called
my wife and said, “I found dad’s car.”
“You have to be crazy,” she said. “Buying
a car like that sight unseen?” It was not a
trivial amount of money to me. They did
their due diligence, bought the car, and had
it shipped to where we were living in India-
napolis at the time. As my family will tell
you, I cried like a little kid when I saw it.
The first time I took the car to a localDavid and Toni Eldridge Wilkes, above, with their 1972 De
Tomaso Pantera. The cockpit features a leather dashboard
and a bevy of switches and gauges. The 351-cubic inch Ford
V-8 engine, below.
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