1979 De Tomaso Pantera Silhouette Gr. 5 racing at Circuit Paul Ricard!

It's been several months since I went to Circuit Paul Ricard last year for the Dix Mille Tours by Peter Auto and I completely forgot to put together a video fully focused on one of my personal highlights of the 2022 edition: the De Tomaso Pantera Group 5 chassis 001, freshly restored by Braun Motorsport Germany to its original 1979 specs and tested for the occasion by German race driver Ralf Kelleners. De Tomaso initially built some lightweight Group 4 and GT4 cars in early 70s but none of the Group 5 or IMSA GTX Panteras were ever designed and campaigned by the factory itself. In fact most of these cars were converted from Group 3 or 4 Panteras, adding wider body panels but without the major redesign and chassis modifications on the level of those undertaken by the direct rivals (Porsche with their 935 or the Zakspeed Capri for example). However two chassis (001 and 1603) were built specifically to try to raise the bar and be competitive in this top tier class. Both of them were private eff