Updated

Updated · The Autopian · Jul 26

David Tracy Drives Carroll Shelby’s 600-HP De Tomaso Pantera, Weighs November RM Sotheby’s Sale

Updated

Updated · The Autopian · Jul 26

David Tracy Drives Carroll Shelby’s 600-HP De Tomaso Pantera, Weighs November RM Sotheby’s Sale

Q: How did Carroll Shelby's custom twin-turbo V8 engine end up abandoned in a California junkyard for decades?

It is not clear from the reported accounts exactly why Shelby’s custom twin-turbo Chrysler V8 ended up in a California junkyard, only that it had been separated from the car long before Beau Boeckmann bought the Pantera from Shelby’s estate. What is documented is that the Pantera was acquired after Shelby’s death without its original engine. Boeckmann, with help from his cousin Steve McCord and Shelby Enterprises, later traced that missing motor to a California junkyard, where it had apparently sat for decades. The available reporting describes the engine as effectively lost rather than deliberately preserved, suggesting it was removed during the car’s later life and eventually discarded or sold off into the salvage stream. That kind of separation is not unusual with one-off or experimental performance cars. Shelby’s Pantera was a secretive, highly customized project tied to his Chrysler-era work with Lee Iacocca, and such cars often pass through multiple hands, undergo incomplete modifications, or lose major components when they fall out of use. In this case, the engine’s significance appears not to have been fully recognized at the time it was abandoned. The key verified fact is that the motor was missing, later found in a California junkyard, and then restored to its original Banks-tuned specification with help from Gale Banks, who had tuned it decades earlier.

Q: What was the true purpose behind Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca's secret 1980s supercar project?

The most credible explanation is that Shelby and Iacocca used the Pantera as a clandestine engineering mule—a high-performance test-bed for Chrysler’s future halo-car ambitions, widely linked to early thinking around the Dodge Viper rather than a production Pantera program of its own. That reading is supported by the background around the car. Boeckmann says he was told the Pantera was being used “as a bit of a test-bed for the Dodge Viper,” with Iacocca and Shelby—who were already collaborating at Chrysler in the 1980s—taking an existing Italian supercar and fitting it with a twin-turbo Chrysler V8. The choice made practical sense: the Pantera already had a mid-engine exotic layout and supercar image, allowing Shelby and Iacocca to experiment with extreme Chrysler power in a proven performance chassis without publicly revealing what they were exploring. There is no strong evidence in the supplied material that the real aim was to revive De Tomaso or launch a formal Shelby-branded Pantera line. The secrecy, the Chrysler engine swap, and the timing during Shelby’s Chrysler years all point more toward private prototyping and concept development than toward a retail product. So the project’s true purpose appears to have been strategic experimentation: a discreet way for Shelby and Iacocca to explore what a Chrysler-powered supercar could be, while testing ideas that may have informed the Viper era.

1 articles · Updated · The Autopian · Jul 26

David Tracy says Carroll Shelby’s restored De Tomaso Pantera delivered far more than expected, with the 600-plus-hp twin-turbo V8 making the 40-year-old car feel brutally fast yet surprisingly refined.
Beau Boeckmann’s car carries Shelby’s original secret-project mystique: he bought it from Shelby’s collection without an engine, later found the original Chrysler twin-turbo V8 in a California junkyard, and had Galpin Auto Sports revive it with Gale Banks.
On the road, Tracy found heavy steering and a stiff gated shifter at low speed, but once opened up the Pantera surged with what he described as Viper-like thrust while still cruising comfortably on the highway.
The GT5-S Pantera is featured in The Autopian’s 'Should I Sell It' series, where Boeckmann is deciding which of roughly 100 collector cars to consign to an RM Sotheby’s auction in November.

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The Autopian8h ago

David Tracy Reviews Carroll Shelby's 600+ HP De Tomaso Pantera Supercar

Will this reunited 600-horsepower piece of Shelby history break records if it finally goes to auction?

How did Carroll Shelby's custom twin-turbo V8 engine end up abandoned in a California junkyard for decades?

What was the true purpose behind Carroll Shelby and Lee Iacocca's secret 1980s supercar project?

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1 total

The Autopian8h ago

David Tracy Reviews Carroll Shelby's 600+ HP De Tomaso Pantera Supercar

David Tracy Drives Carroll Shelby’s 600-HP De Tomaso Pantera, Weighs November RM Sotheby’s Sale

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