Carroll Shelby Secretly Built One Of The Craziest Supercars Ever. Here's What It's Like To Drive - The Autopian

What the report says

The Autopian published a July 26, 2026 feature by Beau Boeckmann on an unusual De Tomaso Pantera formerly owned by Carroll Shelby. Boeckmann says he bought the car from Shelby’s personal collection after Shelby’s death, even though it was missing its engine, because of its ties to Shelby, Lee Iacocca and Galpin’s long history with Shelby American.

According to the article, the Pantera had been built in the 1980s as a quiet development project involving Shelby and Iacocca, who was then leading Chrysler. The car reportedly used a Banks twin-turbo, liquid-intercooled Chrysler V8 rather than the Ford power typically associated with Panteras. Boeckmann writes that after acquiring the engineless car, he and cousin Steve McCord traced the original engine to a California junkyard connected to old Shelby Enterprises parts disposal.

The restoration was handled through Galpin Auto Sports, with hot-rod builder Dave Shuten leading the work and Gale Banks, who had tuned the engine decades earlier, helping bring the powertrain back. Banks’ company previously described the car as a secret Shelby-Iacocca project and said the restored Pantera appeared on Discovery’s “DRIVEN,” later known as “Car Kings.”

The piece also includes driving impressions from Autopian contributor David Tracy, who approached the vintage supercar after testing a modern 815-horsepower Mustang GTD. He describes being surprised by the restored Pantera’s presence and performance, noting Boeckmann’s claim that the car again has its original 600-plus-horsepower V8. The story matters chiefly as a rare look at an obscure Shelby-linked experiment joining Italian supercar design, Chrysler-era engineering and Galpin’s restoration work.