BEHIND THE LENS SCOTT MEAD With a little help from his grandfather, Mecum’s senior photographer, Scott, started driving at the age of 3 and was racing go-karts by the time he turned 8. He received his first camera (a Kodak Instamatic) around the same time and started photographing car events, races, rallies and concours. Before coming to Mecum, he was a writer and photographer for Edmunds.com, Motor Trend and spent 15 years in Hawaii photographing the island’s splendor. Scott’s wife swears he gargles with 100-octane race gas and bleeds 20/50 motor oil, and when he’s not on the road, you can find him in his garage, wrenching on their DeTomaso Pantera or Porsche 914. THE HOLY GRAIL EXPERIENCE I have a confession to make: in addition to being a general collector car fanatic, I’m also an aficionado of DeTomaso autos. Check that. I’m more of a lifelong devotee, though my friends say I have a problem and my wife just calls me a nut—but that’s for multiple reasons. Truth be told, my love affair with the marque started when I was just 6 years old. I was in my parents’ backyard on the swing set when I heard an amazing sound coming up the street. It was deep, throaty and unlike anything I had ever heard before. The tone rose with a downshift and settled into a burbling idle on the other side of the fence. I leapt from the swing, ran to the gate, threw it open and froze in my tracks. In our driveway sat a car that looked like a spaceship: low, sleek, bright orange (it was the ‘70s), with four bristling exhaust tips extending from the bodywork. It was a 1974 DeTomaso Pantera. I was completely mesmerized and slack-jawed. Suddenly, I realized someone was calling my name. It was my dad, sitting behind the wheel of the car, “Scott! Wanna go for a ride?” I ran to the passenger side as my dad opened the door. I plopped down in the seat, and he helped me put on the lap belt. I sat staring at the futuristic dash, with its big round tachometer, 200 MPH speedometer and center stack filled with gauges and switchgear. “You ready?” he asked. “Yep,” was all I could muster in response. Dad slotted the gated shifter into first, blipped the throttle and let out the clutch. Before the front tires hit the street, I was hooked. As a member of the DeTomaso community for more than 45 years (our family has owned four different Panteras), I’ve had the opportunity to see, ride in or drive all of the models DeTomaso produced (the Pantera, Mangusta, Vallelunga, Longchamp, Deauville, Guara and Bigua) plus a few of the company’s race cars, like the Group 3, 4, 5 and C Panteras. Still, even with all that first-hand exposure, there were two elusive cars tied to the DeTomaso name that I had heard about but never seen: dual GT cars that should have challenged McLaren in the Can-Am series, though they never got the chance. My luck, however, was about to change. 58 • MECUM.COM
