Italian

1972-75 De Tomaso Pantera

Posted by The Professor

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Designed by Tom Tjaarda, the Pantera featured exotic Italian styling coupled with a 5.8L Ford V8 engine. Ford imported around 5,500 Panteras between 1971 and 1975, selling them through their Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Early Panteras were notorious for their unreliability; Elvis Presley once shot a gun at his when it would not start.

Though Ford ceased importing Panteras after 1975, they were imported via the grey market through the 1980s. A total of 7,260 were sold between 1971 and 1992.

Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, CA

Photographed February 2012

1967 Fiat 600

Posted by The Professor

1963 Fiat 600 1963 Fiat 600 1963 Fiat 600 1963 Fiat 600

When I first spotted this car on the streets of Paris, I thought the 600 was just like a slightly enlarged 500. In fact, the 600 was released 2 years prior to the introduction of the far more famous 500, so I suppose the Fiat 500 is a shrunken 600.

The Spanish car company SEAT built this car under license for 17 years (1957-1973) as the SEAT 600, which helped provide cheap transportation for Spanish families; it is an iconic car in Spain, more so than in Italy, where the Fiat 500 is the iconic one. 2,695,197 Fiat 600s were produced along with 737,319 SEAT 600s.

Paris, France

Photographed July 2013