1 owner Carroll Shelby 1983 Pantera GTS

[terlingua11]

I was passing some time on Ebay and stubbled on this. Interesting car. No personal connection to the sale, just thought someone may have interest.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1983-De-Tomaso-Pantera-Owned-by-Carroll-Shelby-One-owner-4-571-miles/393103014400?hash=item5b86c3fa00:g:opgAAOSw9D1ejhFN

Jeff

[TA Coupe]

Didn't know they were still making Pantera's in 1983

      Roy

[557]

Lotta coin....

[Don Johnston]

Only one owner?  Since CS passed in 2012, who has the title to it now?  How is CS going to sign off on the ownership transfer?   

[Side-Oilers]

With the same Auto-Pen "he" uses to sign all those dashboards and other parts?

[FL SAAC]

Only one owner?  Since CS passed in 2012, who has the title to it now?  How is CS going to sign off on the ownership transfer?   

+ 1

[Coralsnake]

It doesn't seem confusing to me, most likely it has been held in a legal trust. Once a person has passed the trustee can sign over the title in most states.

[shelbydoug]

When Shelby was at Chrysler, Ioccoca was investigating the old "Ford thing" of wanting an italian exotic.

Chrysler bought a dozen Panteras and they were all invoiced to Shelby and delivered through Amerisport who was the US firm "Fedralizing" Panteras.

Before you accept the claim that this particular Pantera WAS Shelby's personally owned car, you should do further investigation. All of them that have come up for sale have claimed personal ownership by Shelby and the only way you can document any of them is from the original invoice showing Shelby as the purchaser.

What I have seen publicly of some of the others is that none have been thought of as this valuable. $125 ish is more like it.


They will all show Shelby ownership because of the invoices and I suppose legally it is a valid claim but it isn't the spirit of the thing.

As far as why the dozen or so are invoiced to Shelby, it has to do with the way corporations shield themselves from personal liability lawsuits.
The ones that were seen in California had MFG plates on them. I do not think any were ever actually "Federalized" for legal US street use.

I believe there were three at Shelby's California Chrysler headquarters. Two had 318's installed into them. One was turbocharged. The third one that engineering never got to, could be this one.


There's a Mangusta currently for sale as well that the seller is claiming it was Carroll's personal car and he put all the flairs and scoops on it as an experiment.

Talk is cheap. Be careful with your money.


The end result of this "experiment" was that Chrysler bought Lamborghini and that's when you see Iaccoca debuting the Diablo around 1992 or so. If you look closely at that car, it has a Chrysler VIN tag on it.

[shelbymann1970]

Thanks ShelbyDoug. I never knew any of that other than the Lambo part

[Don Johnston]

It doesn't seem confusing to me, most likely it has been held in a legal trust. Once a person has passed the trustee can sign over the title in most states.

I get that, but wouldn't the title then be under the CHS Trust? 

[FL SAAC]

Maybe even simpler,  open title thats been signed and handed down

It doesn't seem confusing to me, most likely it has been held in a legal trust. Once a person has passed the trustee can sign over the title in most states.

I get that, but wouldn't the title then be under the CHS Trust?

[Coralsnake]

The car would not need to be retitled after a death, only when sold

[rkm]

Not an '83 imho.

[shelbydoug]

As far as a title being the document of proof (and why wouldn't it be) keep in mind that there was a scam "claimed" (I'm not sure it was proven) that cars were being purchased by someone in Shelby's employ (unbeknownst to him) and titled in Shelby's name.

Then put on the market as his "personal" vehicles.

Now I don't know how with these claims anyone can actually be confident these were personally owned by CS, but it sounds like there is risk of a legal (read expensive) challenge to that at some point in the future?

It's a thought.

[Side-Oilers]

Are all cars formerly owned by Shelby American, Shelby Automobiles (e.g. the Dodge years) or anything else in some sort of company name actually/legally "owned" by CS?   And thus can legally be sold as "Owned by Carroll Shelby"?

If so, then every FoMoCo product ever produced could be claimed to have been owned by some/all members of the extended Ford family.

Man, those guys owned a heck of a lot of cars. Wonder how they found time to drive them all.