08x11 - The Pantera of the Future

[bunniefuu]

Yeah, they work.

[ernie] I'm here to modify
a 1972 pantera.

The problem is,
is I don't, I don't fit well
in it.

Not very smooth.

What a pain in the a*s!

Maybe like a hot tub
in the back or something.

[kevin] I just realized we cut
a perfectly good
pantera in half.

I'm actually a little,
a little scared right now.

[man 1] they don't fit.

[dave] only thing I see is
now the car just looks long.

Not exactly what I was
looking for!

When I look at a blank canvas,
I see endless possibilities.

As the ideas come to mind,
the lines start
to fall into place.

And before you know it,
we have a bitchin' ride.

A bitchin' ride has
intense color...

[man 4] this is gorgeous.

[dave] ...Performance...

[man 4] it's fantastic.

[dave]
...Stance, wheels, sound.

If there's one thing
that makes our cars stand out,

ours are bitchin' rides.

[man] oh, it never gets old.

[man laughing]

[dave]
today is a very special day
for not just me,

but also kindig-it design,
in general.

I've got one of my
very favorite kinds of cars

coming into the shop
to get a full build.

My name is ernie boch.

I'm from boston and I'm here
in salt lake city
to modify a 1972 pantera.

-Well, I'm glad you made it
all the way out here, ernie.
-Yeah.

Yeah, it's nice out here.

This has got to be probably
one of the most awesome cars.

[ernie] yeah, iconic.

I love 'em.
I absolutely love 'em.

I've always liked them
since I was a kid.

When I grew up,
those are the cars

that were on the magazines,
you know.

[dave] so, ernie, what...
What are you going to do?

Are you going to go out
and drive it?
Or what's your plan?

I have a few vehicles
and I won't buy a car
unless I drive it.

I'm not the type of guy
that builds a car

and just puts it
in the garage.

I like to put it on the street
and drive it.

Well, I'd like to go out
and see what it can do,

of course, legally
and everything, you know.

-But --
-you'd be the first one.

I think it'd be great.

Very cool.

I don't even, I don't even
know why I'm attracted to it,

but it's really a cool car.

But the problem is,
is I don't,
I don't fit well in it.

I'm 6'2''.
I mean, I can drive it.

You know, it would be nice
to be comfortable in it.

Right. Right.

-I don't fit
and I'm only 5'11''.
-Right, yeah.

-So as long as we can
make this car fit you.
-Yes.

And I guess, at this point,
how bad is it?

It's, it's tight.
It's tight.

Why don't you jump in the car?
Let me see, let me see
what we got to work with.

All right.

I have to slide
this leg in first.

Not very smooth.

-And you have three of these.
-Yeah.

What a pain in the a*s!

And it's, so... I mean,
I can drive it.

I have driven it,
but it's just
not really comfortable.

-Yeah.
-It's not comfortable at all.

The must-haves that
I want for this vehicle
is to be able to fit in it.

As, as it is now,
it's extremely difficult
to drive it comfortably.

So, I want to drive it.
I want to enjoy it.

That'll be our goal
is to make sure that
you can fit in this car

and that you feel comfortable,
'cause, you know,

it's cool to have a car
in a collection.

-Right.
-It's even cooler to get it
out and drive it and enjoy it.

Absolutely. Yeah.

[dave] well, I think we've got
our challenges.

I've got a pretty radical idea
that doesn't just solve

ernie's problem fitting
in the car,

but also takes us
to a whole new world
and it's bitchin'.

We've got some
really magical stuff.

Look at how cool that is.
It's all inboard cantilever.

[ernie] that's beautiful.

[dave]
suspension is a super trick.
It's based on c6 corvette.

[ernie] nice.

Which is going to improve,
obviously, the strength
of the body.

-Yes.
-The handling certainly,

and give us the ability
to change up

the drivetrain a little bit
to make it, you know,
a lot more fun to drive.

[ernie] that's beautiful. Wow.

[dave] if I'm building
the full chassis

and cutting the whole unibody
out of this car,

I've got the ability
to add some length to the car
where it needs it.

We simply just add four inches
right through here,

just move everything forward,
everything backward.

We'll have the ability
to build basically
around your frame.

That's unbelievable.

So, we'll be able to put some
serious traction underneath
all four corners.

Yeah, great.
I'm excited.

-Me too. Me too.
-All right.

I came here
to kindig-it design
to have dave do the car.

What about, what about
making it a little wider?

And I'm trying
not to get in the way.

Yeah. So actually, it's funny
you say that

because here is some line art,

-and I just started to kind of
sketching out to get the...
-[ernie] wow, nice.

-I love it.
-[dave] ...The idea going.

Normally, I don't have
a full plan or schematic
for the first meeting,

but in this case,
I love pantera so much,
I couldn't help it.

The cool thing about this car
is it has so much
of that cool '70s,

you know,
lamborghinian, exotics.

It screams 1970s.

It's just awesome.

So am I though.

Hey, man, I'm a disco guy
myself.

I brought the '72 pantera
to dave because he's the best.

But what I want to do is
I want to make this
full-on disco.

You know, it's my car,

-but dave is the man, so...
-I want to make
your car very unique

-in the sense that we want
to do something...
-Absolutely.

-...Different and I want it
to be timeless. So...
-Yeah.

You have to let
the artist do what he does.

[dave] what I'm thinking
about doing is giving this car
a little bit of a silhouette

or almost like an hourglass,
then just bring
the fenders out

just a little bit and same
with the rear quarter.

[ernie]
keeping the same profile.

Exactly. The silhouette,
again,
because that's what's

the most beautiful thing about
this car is the silhouette.

It's just cool.
It's aggressive,
it's vintage, it's exotic.

Ernie doesn't have any
specific things that he wants
to do with this car.

He seems very open to it,
which is great.

I got a long list of things
that I would do
if it was my car,

and I think it might be
a good fit for him.

Maybe we take
the bumpers off.

It's not real
aerodynamic-looking,
but I'm thinking about

opening this up,
put the turn signal
and parking light in there

-kind of sink it back
a little bit.
-[ernie] yeah. Wow.

And get rid of the headlights
off the top,
it'll look really big.

-Yeah.
-Another thing that was always
kind of missing is there's,

-like, there's no chin
on the bottom of this car.
-Right.

By increasing this
a little bit

and bringing it out
just a little bit,

it'll give it more of a face.

And I think that'll
really add to it.

I really do have
an exacting idea

of what needs to be done
to make it look cool.

And in my mind, it's perfect.

I'm thinking about
maybe dropping this section

of the hood down,
inside of it.

-[ernie] nice, yeah.
Like the new ferrari.
-[dave] exactly.

-So, the psa has that
k*ller duct in the hood...
-Yeah, just dives right down.

...That comes through, right?

[dave] yeah, we'll just take
these and basically
turn them down.

So, I think that,
that actually would
kind of make this car

-stand out
a lot more without...
-[ernie] right.

Yet still look like
a pantera.

Exactly, exactly.

I think it's important
when you see the car
that you know it's a pantera.

And dave agrees.

So that's, that's good
that he agrees.

And newer handles, right?

Of course, it's got
to have, man.

-That's nice, nice.
-[dave] yeah, I'm excited,
man.

I'll tell you what,
this is like a dream
come true growing up,

you know, loving panteras
and I'm just,
I'm super stoked.

And now we just got
to figure out
what color you want.

Right.

I think, you know, everything
you do is amazing. Color.

But the thing is, is
I'm a more conservative
type of thing.

So, if... You know, I want it
a little classic,

I don't want to be able to
see it from 10 miles away,

having this crazy purple,
or something like that.

Do you have kind of
a favorite color
that you like?

No. I need--
it's going to be
such a nice vehicle

that I think subtlety
will be the key.

Yeah.

You know, blue is nice,
but I'm not going to tell you.

You know, I just...
Just a little bit more subtle.

This is a great color.

-[dave] sure.
-[ernie] don't get me wrong.
It fits it perfect.

But I would prefer
a little something
a little more subtle.

-Okay.
-Yeah.

I'm pretty sure this won't be
our last conversation about

what color this car should go.

Well, at the end of the day,
ernie, it's your car.

I'm going to make sure
that you like it.

One thing is for sure
this car, when it's done,

is going to be bitchin'
and the right color.

-I know we're excited.
-Yeah.

A lot of the guys,
when they seen the car
show up, they're like,

-"we get to do a pantera?"
-right.

I've always been a pantera fan
and this is almost like

if they produced it today,
let's do it.

That'll be the goal.

-Okay.
-All right.

-One modern pantera
coming up, sir.
-Yeah.

Awesome.

When this project is finished,
I'll have a modern version
of a 1972 pantera.

Okay, I will have
a bitchin' ride.

[dave]
we got a pretty good idea
now

of what ernie
wants to see in this build,

but before we get too far,
we're going to go ahead
and disassemble it

and get it stripped up
in eugene, oregon.

[jason] I haven't seen
any of the design
of what dave is thinking,

but teardown is all the same.

Taking off nuts and bolts
and ripping it down
to the little stuff,

just trying to find
some of the hidden screws

that you've no idea
where they're at.

I've seen like two panteras
in my life,

so this is going to be
a new experience for me.

One of those was the band,
right?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is
the tedious part,
pulling it apart,

documenting, and here he's got
a big old mouse nest.

All that stuff, it's acorns
everywhere up there,

seeing bloody junk in there
and then there's poop
everywhere on this side.

What needs to be replaced,
what's broken,
and what's missing,

semi-truck horns.
Let's see if they still work.

[horn blaring]

yeah, they work!

So we can have a full list
at the beginning of the build
to make it easier at the end.

Well, that came out
a lot easier
than I was expecting.

I don't know where
this pantera came from
or where we got it.

One pantera glass!

But there's virtually no rust
and it looks really clean
and very minimal problems.

[dave] now that the teardown
is complete, it's time for me

to finish up the rendering
of this car

and show the boys
what we're going to build.

I'm having the opportunity
to design up a 1972 pantera.

I think I drew
a couple of these
as a kid

just because I really loved
panteras,
but this is the very first one

that we're designing up
to build at the shop here
and I'm super pumped.

One of the big advantages
we have with building this car

is that we're putting
a brand-new chassis
from roadster shop under it.

So, this will be a really cool
opportunity to utilize
some good technology,

make a much-improved
handling vehicle

and, of course,
still keep it classic.

As the panteras
got into the '80s,
they had a lot of big,

bulbous fender flares,
which I still like,

but I think that the very
first years of these cars
were very classic-looking,

so I'm going to incorporate
some modern touches,

but still keep some chrome
on it,

so that it looks like a
very first generation.

I'm going to emulate kind
of that same look,

but I'm actually going to add
some led driving lights,

and I'm also going to get rid
of the lift lights.

This will be kind of
unique smoothing off the car

and giving it just
a little bit more character.

The car originally
is a lime green,
which is really, really cool.

He wants to do something
a little bit
more conservative,

a little bit more
on the gray side,

something that maybe
doesn't stand out as much.

The problem that I have
is that the fun colors
have kind of gone away,

but I'm going to go ahead
and do it in the gray.

I think it looks really good.

I'm also kind of curious
to see maybe down the road

I might do it in green
and just see if I can
get his interest in it.

It's official.

The rendering is finished
and we're ready for the races.

[music]

I'm super pumped on this car.

Got it all tore apart?

Yeah, we got it all ready
to send out.

Check that out.

That's k*ller!

Woo!

-I know, right.
-I like that.

I keep drawing this stuff up
that I just want
to keep it myself.

That's how I feel.

How's the metal on it?

Oh, there's a few spots
that might go through,

but the majority...
Last pantera I did was like
swiss cheese when it came back

and this one, I don't think
we're going to have
that problem.

Good.

'cause we're going to have
very minimal rust to repair.

We always expect
to get back the best.

Of course, we don't know
exactly what we're going
to get until it shows back up.

It's got a great body.

That's so awesome that,
that makes me feel
so much better,

because I mean, when we get
this back from strip,

we're going to have a lot of
work to move some stuff
around, you know.

[jason]
it's just cool to go straight
to the customizing

instead of a month
of rust repair.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, that's what
I'm stoked about.

That's great news,
and I'm sure ernie will be
happy about that, too.

Well, great job.

That was quick and easy.

While we wait for that pantera
to get back from strip,

I got a little surprise
for kev dog.

So, you know,
when you were
on your vacation,

I got a little excited.
This showed up last week.

I knew it was coming too.
Ah, that's so cool.

-Wow.
-I know, right?

[kevin]
we're just getting started
on this pantera.

I kind of like that word,
pantera.

Not as much as I like chassis.

Chassis.

Pantera.

[dave] so, you know,
you were
on your vacation,

I got a little excited.
This showed up last week.

I know that dave's
trying to surprise me,
but I run this place.

I ordered it.

I knew it was coming, too.

Ah, that's so cool.

-Wow.
-I know, right?

[kevin]
he is right about one thing.

I am super excited
to see this in person.

You know what that means?
We get to get started
on this pantera.

So this is our 0506
ford gt transaxle.

And then we got
the coyote 5.0,

and I think we're going
to have plenty of horsepower.

I think we'll play around
a little bit
with the fuel injection.

But, dude,
those guys k*lled it
with this thing.

[kevin] oh, I agree.
It looks awesome.

[dave]
look at the detail on that.

This chassis is full-custom
and it is awesome.

[dave] you see all the details
too, the little kindig-it logo

right here that they machined
into the cantilever...

-[kevin] yeah.
-[dave] coilovers
and even the knobs.

[kevin] yeah, that's cool.

[dave] this chassis is snazzy.

Or as I like to say,
marvelous.

That's cool.

Cool cantilever,
all fabricated,
upper and lower control arms.

It's just dope.

Something super slick about
this particular chassis

is it replaces something
that never existed
on a pantera.

[kevin] this is a unibody car.

All the suspension plates
hung off of the actual body.

So now we're going to get rid
of all that

and we're going to install
this super-rigid chassis.

This car is going to be
amazing to drive.

It's not even,
it's not even done yet.

[dave] I think at this point,
with the four-inch stretch
in the wheelbase,

once we get the body back,
take a look at it.

Let's see where
the seating position is,

and then we'll determine
where to do the splits
and the doors

and then the quarters.

I cannot wait to build
this beautiful pantera
around this chassis.

The pantera is back,
and unbelievably,
it is in fantastic shape.

[jason] we're going to start
getting into this pantera

and just kind of get
the body prepped

before getting it ready
to cut in half.

So, just do a few things
here and there
to get the ball rolling.

We're going to be taking out
the headlight bar
for the pop-ups.

We're getting rid
of the headlights,
going to put them down low.

All the side marker lights
we're going to go through,
shave those all off.

I'm super excited
about this project.

It's going to be fun car.

Going real easy,
'cause there's no rust
and all the metal

there is good in quality,

so, we're gonna get 'em done
pretty quick.

One of the biggest things
for us is a huge obstacle.

We're going to cut the car
in half and add
four inches of stretch.

This will allow a little bit
more room for our
customer to fit.

Making it look like
it was never cut,
well, that's the big job.

[jason] we don't want to make
the car looks like
we've done something.

We want to make it look like
it was supposed to be
that way from the beginning.

Maybe what we ought to do is,
let's see if we can get

just a side profile picture
and let's print it out,
do a little paper chop

and just see what it does
to the overall
silhouette of the car.

So, I went through
and made a couple quick
cut-out designs.

This is stock.
No mods done.

[dave]
staying close to the original
proportions of the pantera

is really what our
biggest goal is,

but we still have to add
the four inches.

[jason] this one up here,
we put the chop through
the door,

added all four inches
on the door.

The door looks
really long here.

My first impression is to
not add all four inches
in the door.

I don't want it
to look out of proportion.

This door would look
really long.

[jason] and this one, we put
the chop in the rear,
added the four in the quarter.

To do that much
in the back, uh...

This could be the
right way to go.

But this is also going to add
a lot of extra time to rebuild
these quarter panels.

This is a pretty
important call to make,
so we got to make sure

we make one decision
and do the job right.

So, if we did it right through
the middle of the rib
and just split the doors...

[jason] kind of pondering
all our options to figure out

what's going to be
the best look on the car.

Trying to think
if that gives us
any kind of an advantage.

I don't think we need
a bunch more room.

In fact, I think
the new engine

and transaxle
is shorter overall.

Yeah, I measured
the centerline of the firewall

and we have plenty of room
for the motor.

[dave] I've had a lot of
different ideas
of where to add four inches

so that it didn't stand out.

And now that
it's in front of us,
we've got to make a decision.

I kind of like
a mix of the two.

-[jason] right.
-Well, let's cut the car
in half first.

We'll have to cut through
the middle,

whether we do two here
or four there...

To be able to get it onto
the chassis?

Yeah, I think
at the end of the day,
that's probably smart,

because we're going to put
some in the door,
no matter what.

Yeah, we're definitely doing
some in the doors.

So, whether we do it all
in the door,

which this doesn't really look
out of place,
I think to split it in half,

'cause we already know
we've got to do that.
You're right.

Splitting the four inches
between the doors

and the rear quarters could be
the right way to go.

But the only way to make
the right decision
is to look at it for myself.

Let's get a visual of the car
on the chassis. It might work

with four inches
all on the door.

We want to make
it badass, so...

Dave and jason have
really been collaborating
on the design of this pantera.

And I think it's awesome,
but I don't think that

they've exhausted all of the
possibilities of this car.

This car could really be
out of this world.

These are all great,
and I know that this
is what you kind of designed,

but if you want to go
for maybe something
a little bit extra,

maybe like a hot tub
in the back or something.

Far out.

Obviously, it carries
a lot of the styling,

which I am in love with that
dave and jason came up with.

But why not add another axle
and instead of the engine
being in the back,

let's take it
to the next level
and put it in the front,

and then the back
would open up
and there's a hot tub for you

and all your ladies
and your friends, too.

It'll be awesome.

Hey, you know what will says,
"if it works on paper,
it can work on real life."

you say you want
a bitchin' ride,
how is this not bitchin'.

Dude, think about the peeling
outs in that, dude?

No, no.

You want cutting-edge,
what's better than
four wheels?

Six!

Think about how much smoke's
going to come off it.

Think about all of the stuff
you could haul with it.

Right?

Making a six-wheel hot-tub
machine, that's bitchin'.

This is just
a conceptual thing,

but I am actually
going to render this,

so, it's actually a...
Yeah, see.

Look how much extra room...
Now you're talking.

Now, you get over
the hills easy.

Now you're talking.

-You know what?
-You're kind of a one-upper,
dave?

It looks like I've picked
the wrong week
to quit amphetamines.

I'll draw both, two and three.

Okay. Thanks.

Thanks for that, guys.
That's... Holy crap.

Just think it over.

Maybe, maybe
one of these days,

dave will take my design
seriously.

Hot tub in the back.

Okay.

Until then, I'm just
going to keep trying.

Okay, great work.

[mimics engine revs]

[dave] the pantera has been
stripped, dipped
and it's ready for anything.

-Hot tub in the back.
-Okay.

Yeah, so we're not doing
anything close to that.

Let's go ahead
and cut the car in half.

Let's get it fashioned
on the new chassis.

Before we cut this car
right down the middle,

I got to cut
the entire floor out

and make room
for the new chassis
that's going to be installed.

Got it!

We need a lot of room for this
chassis to go under this car.

So we're cutting out
the entire bottom, the front,
the back, the middle.

The only thing going to be
left is the outer skins.

The structure was
four layers thick.

It's a major pain in the butt
to cutout.

Now onto the main event.

We're going to cut it
right through the peak
of the roof,

right through the rocker,
and I hope it works out,

because there's
a lot of things
that could go wrong.

So, this is it.

Don't get scared now.

[dave] now that we know
where we're going to cut,

we just got to make the cut
straight.

[jason] when I'm cutting
this car in half,
what I don't want to do is

cause issues with the skin
or have things fall
one way or the other.

Things have to stay aligned.

Things have to stay parallel,
so I want to make sure
I make that happen.

What I don't want to do
is screw it up.

Now, we'll see
if it'll split, just like
the magic show guys

with the sawed-in-half women.

[dave] just realized we cut
a perfectly good pantera
in half.

And cut all of the floor
and suspension out of it.

[jason]
definitely have two pieces.

And I'm scared.

I'm actually a little scared
right now.

That went well.

I guess I didn't impress
everybody with my magic trick.

No crashing, no falling.

I call that a win.

And let's go ahead
and start getting it
on to the car

and let's see what we got.

[jason] yeah.

[dave] I think it's going to
be important to put the body
on the chassis,

stand back
and just double check
before we do any more work.

Are we just going to lift
the front onto it right here?

[jason] yeah.

[kevin] pantera is in
two big pieces right now.

We need to get this thing
on the chassis
and make it one again.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, that's easy.

-No.
-No.

Uh.

Guys, what if we go forward
and come back down on it?

If anything,
this should be easy,

we only have half a car
to work with.

Try again. Let's try again.

That body will fit as long as
you keep that rocker
below this.

Kind of go,
now you can drop it.

-Take down.
-You can start
to drop it down.

This doesn't go
go back anymore?

It don't fit.

Now we're hitting the roof,
starting to bend it.

[kevin] good thing this frame
is super-beefy.

Even though we've cut the crap
out of this pantera,

we have to cut even more
to get it on the chassis.

I would, I would almost say,
wipe this thing clean
from here

all the way back out the dash.

[jason] that's kind of
what I was thinking.

All this... All this is
going to have to go.

It's kind of
what I was afraid of.

[greg] we're going to have
to start structuring it up.

This thing might just
turn into a wet noodle.

Well, cut her out.

They're almost there.

That's what I thought
two days ago.

Sorry.

-How about you do the back
and I'll do the front?
-I was waiting for that.

I was totally waiting
for that.

I need time to think
about plans.

Yep.

We had to remove so much metal
in this pantera,
we started to get concerned.

So, we're going to weld in
some braces here to make sure
it holds the shape.

-[jason] more cut, more cut--
-more cut.

[jason] oh.

[kevin] flanges, rockers,
inner fender wells,
all this stuff,

including the dash
we had to remove just
to get this on the chassis.

[jason] uh, it'll still
probably hit, I bet.

-Is it getting lighter?
-It's getting lighter.

It's still holding shape
pretty good.

Yeah.

It's not bad.

[kevin]
this pantera better fit
this time,

'cause there's not
very much more to cut.

Can we slide back?

[jason] it don't fit.

It's still holding shape
pretty good.

Yeah, it's not bad.

[kevin]
hopefully, we get the body
on this chassis.

There's nothing else to cut.

We're running out of pantera.

Oh, there you go,
again, now you can go down.

[kevin]
we got the thing to fit
on the chassis,

but it still needs
some fine-tuning.

One last time, let's,
let's clean this out
and knock this flange off.

So, see if we can get this
right back to here.

We'll cut those front frame
horns off.

We'll do some trimming here
and we'll get it to sit down

and kind of back where we need
and then go from there.

He's done a lot of
cutting so far

and all the pantera guys
at home are cringing,
so let's just...

-Yeah, they're probably
all crying right now.
-Let's just finish her off.

There ain't no coming back.

We got to get it on
a cool chassis at this point,

so there ain't
no turning back.

It's looking like
we're on the right path.

Just a little bit
more trimming
here and there,

and this thing should
get right, right in place.

Money, man.

That's the spot.

Not a lot left of the
original pantera,
but the job is done.

[jason] got the, the back half
all shaved off where we want.

Now it's time to start
fitting it to the chassis
and make it a unibody.

With the body now mounted
on the chassis,

we can stand back
and look at it.

That's the total stretch
right there.

[dave] but it doesn't look...
I mean, that's four inches.

That door doesn't look
any longer than
a ferrari door.

With the wide body that
I want to do,

you're really not going to see
the stretch in the doors.

It won't look out
of proportion.

It doesn't look out of place.

So we're just going to put it
all in the doors and the roof.

I'm super happy with the way
that the stretch
looks on this car.

Now what we've got to do
is fill in the gap
and move forward.

[jason] now comes
the hard/fun part,
putting it back together.

It's all set up
on the chassis stage.

This is where I want it to
live, so we got our four-inch
gap that we're stretching.

We're probably running
it almost double the width.

Fits together real nice.

Everything's lining up
in my clamp,

so next thing I'm going to do
is go through, build the skin,
and start skinning the roof.

We'll start shaping.

I just wanna creep up on it
real slow.

But since it's so flat,

I don't want to make the panel
go farther than I need to,

because then I got to
start trying

to take out the curve
I put in,
which isn't very much.

Nice and slow.

Really flat roof,
so that's probably
going to make welding

and hammering it back out flat
a lot of fun,

'cause there's not
a ton of contour,
that'll be a challenge.

The roof of this pantera
is very flat,

and it makes it a little more
difficult.

You don't have that contour
to help shape,
so when you weld this,

it's going to want to sink,
it's going to want to rise.

So it's real important
to control that panel
as you go.

I want to go really slow,
double-check everything
I'm doing.

And if I see anything moving,
put it back into place
before I keep going,

because problems only snowball
as you go on this flat panel.

I guess for how flat it is,
it's not bad.

You know, lightweight...
I don't know, probably


It's not like heavy, heavy.

But when you're holding it
out in front of you,

moving it back and forth,
that's when it gets heavy.

Using this planishing hammer
could be a blessing

or a curse depending on
how heavy you are
on the pedal.

Way more efficient
than hammering out,

speeds up the process
a lot, even if it is
a pain in the butt.

[dave] jason has done
a fantastic job adding that
section of the roof back in.

Next is squaring up the body,
making sure it's perfect
to where we want it,

and then start welding
the body to the frame,

start building panels, floors,
get the body locked in

and then we can
go from there.

It's looking good, though.
I really like it.

This car is going to be rad.

[kevin]
we cut so much
structure out of this car

just to get it to fit.

Now we got a weak car.

We've got to go back in
and restructure everything

and make this thing rigid
as it's ever been.

We had to drop the floor about
an inch to give ourselves
enough clearance for headroom,

so we're basically
building a pan

to drop the floor down
and actually make it look like

it's part of the car
and not just drop.

We've got to take our
time on it, not rush it.

How far are you out
to the edge right here?

Taking a little bit longer
to fit it up,
make it fit nice

that on the backside of it,
it doesn't have to take
so much work

to blend it all in
and make it look great.

Kinda the old measure twice,
cut once theory.

We made it awesome,
'cause it's like super strong
and has cool designs in it.

We built the structure
into the floor itself,

so it's actually it has
a strength, the design
and everything,

all in the floor pan.

Yeah, go for it. Yep.

Once you get the floors
locked in, like, for sure,

and you're good with it,
I'll weld 'em in.

[jason] so it's super thin,
it's strong and it looks cool.

Floor is done and moving on
to all the panels

to work our way
outside of the car.

[sighs] I thought today
was Saturday,
so I'm super-tired.

Oh, I hate today.

That went well.

Cut this car into tiny pieces.

Let's just finish her off.

And now it's finally
back together.

That's the spot.

Sort of.
It doesn't have a hot tub.

Well, it's a car again.

Starting to look
more like one piece.

Right?

I feel like we could have
put the engine
in the front on this one

and the back could have been
a hot tub.

I got a present for you.

-Oh, yeah?
-Yeah.

I love presents.

-Show me.
-Hmm.

Hell, yeah.

I spent some time
and made a real rendering.

That's what I'm talking about.

Now dave
can take us serious.

Why don't we just
build this one?

You know, if dave decides
to go with my design,

I think this is going to be
a game-changer
for not only the shop,

the industry,
probably the world.

-This is way better.
-Rad.

I think we can still swing it.

Straight out of the '80s,
dude.

My design would accomplish
clean and classy
the same way that dave's did.

This is just more clean
and classy to go around.

There's six rims instead of
four and it looks way cooler.

It's longer.

We have the weight capacity
and I'll put a hot tub
in the back.

I think if it's over
six thousand pounds,
it's a tax write-off.

Now that we got
a good rendering,

I think dave can
take us serious.

-I think so too.
-And go for it.

-You did an amazing job.
-Looks great.

The benefits of a double-axle
on a pantera are endless.

You know what, I'm going
to submit this to him
and see what he thinks.

Maybe I should be
upfront coloring?

-I think so.
-That will be rad.

I think anybody could do it
at this point.

All right.
Let's just stay focused on
what we have in front of us.

We have a lot to do.

We're moving right
along on this '72 pantera,

but the floor is just the
beginning of the inside
sheet metal

that needs to be fabricated.

Yeah, that's the plan.
Build the whole inside
of the car...

And yeah, it should be
super easy.

"yes."

we've got a dash panel,
center console,
the firewall behind us,

all of the inner panels.

-Just put those anywhere.
-Safety first.

[izzy] yeah.

I mean, there's a ton of stuff
to do.

[izzy]
this firewall is done-ish,

but it matches the floor,
so that's cool.

Yeah.

And now we're starting
on the second firewall.

[izzy] technically, that would
be the firewall
in a normal car,

but I guess
that's the trunk wall,

because somebody screwed up
and put the engine
in the back.

I guess, we could
call that the trunk.

The trunk area.

[daniel] so I'm building
the dashboard.

It's going to be like six
to like eight pieces

all welded together,
split down the center

and build the center console
into it and flow into
the door panels.

And the idea is to get it
big enough to cover
the ac unit,

but sleek enough so you could
fit inside the car still.

I have a feeling by the time
we're done with this pantera,

there will not be
any stock panels left.

[daniel] I guess, one more
piece of the puzzle.

[izzy]
hi. I am doing the inside
engine panels.

Yeah, this thing has got
a ton of panel work.

And the biggest thing is
we're trying to get,

you know, the floor panels
to kind to tie in
to the firewall

and then the firewall
to tie into the engine bay,

trunk, there's a ton of work,
for sure.

Yeah, yeah a lot.

What do they say, the devil
is in the details
or some [bleep] like that.

That's everything
you do't see.

We put all the work in it,
then it gets covered
with a pretty paint job.

Uh, when you,
any time you take a,

you know, basically trying
to unibody this car again,

we've got to tie everything
back into the chassis.

[jason] now we got everything
locked down where we want
it to be.

Now, we're going to chop
the doors in half and finish
the section of the door,

'cause obviously you got
to add that few inches

to be put through the body.

Pretty straightforward
and easy, I hope.

[dave]
with the extra set of doors,
this gives him plenty of room

to determine where to make
the right cut

and to give us that extra
four inches of stretch
through that entire door

using both the inner structure
and the outside skin.

We'll cut one door along
this way and then
one door along the other way.

I really want to avoid making
complications for myself,

so I'm going to make sure
I miss where the windows
mount,

where the regulators mount
so I can just put these
doors together

and get them on the car.

Move the door around,
get the frame built.

The gap on the edge
of the door frame

and the door opening
need to be right on the money.

Then once I'm happy with
where the frame sitting,
for the door,

do a final slice
and then weld it together,
it's going really well.

Unfortunately, the doors
we got,
the structure is really good,

but the door skin was
just rough, so I can't use it.

These panteras have
really thin sheet metal,

so just keeping it all flat
and nice, so we don't have
a big valley

in the middle of the skin
out here

I think it'll be the most
challenging part.

Jason is now going to have to
contend with two weld seams
from the top to bottom.

Now, as long as he's
making sure that those
are lining up perfectly,

it should go seamless.

Dealing with these two weld
seams down
the middle of the door

is a lot trickier
because it's an open panel,
it's semi-flat.

There's a lot of heat
going in there.

Ideally, I'd love to have
just one splice up the middle.

We don't always get
what we want in life.

Like, there's just
so much more
that could go wrong

with two seams versus one.

We don't want
a lot of bondo in there.

You want to keep it
from caving in,

so it's just
a lot of patience,
take your time.

Slow and steady
always wins the race.

I'm really taking my time
with these doors

'cause I want to make sure
they're dialed in,

and the body guys are going to
love me, because they won't
have anything to do.

This pantera is rad.

I've never been
a big pantera guy
or interested in them,

but I've seen
the rendering from dave.

That's all about this car
is going to be rad.

This car is
a little bit different,

obviously, it's a pantera,
so we're going to build
a lot of the panels

on the inside out of steel,
and this will be key

especially for things
such as the shifter.

I got the dash all situated
and bolted in.

Now I just got to get this
started so I could
get this in its place

and then we can finish out
the dash and this
at the same time,

so they flow into each other.

The idea behind my center
console design is to emulate

something that would have been
in there originally,

and that's what I do
on a lot of my builds.

Trickiest part would probably
be fitting it over that
giant shifter that's in there

and fitting between
the giant seats
that are in there

in the tiniest car
you could possibly build.

This is all that fits,
so that's what it turns into.

It's a little different than
what he wanted.

Hey, dave, will you sit
in this real quick?

-You've got the center...
Oh, yeah.
-Yes.

All right. Hey.
Looks like
you got the dash in.

-[daniel] yeah.
-It's looking good. Um...

Looking at daniel's work
on this the first time around

is not exactly
what I was looking for.

This tolerance
is just a little tight.

We'll never get quarter-inch
landau foam in here.

For this ultimate pantera
built by kindig-it design,
we are changing everything,

including all of the
suspension, chassis.

-More cut, more cut, more cut.
-Oh.

[dave] four inches have been
added to the roof
and the doors.

[izzy] so, this is it.
Don't get scared now.

[dave] you name it, it's new.

[izzy] there's a ton of work,
for sure.

Yeah.
Yeah, a lot.

Everything so far has been
going to plan.

All right. Hey, looks like
you got the dash in.

-[daniel] yeah.
-It's looking good. Um...

This tolerance is just
a little tight.

We'll never get quarter-inch
landau foam in here.

Looking at daniel's work
on this the first time around

is not exactly
what I was looking for.

We're going to have to make
a couple of modifications

to daniel's center console
to make sure that it fits.

I want to put basically
just a little bit of radius
to return.

Keep this flat across here
at that same angle.

What the idea was is that
we need to come up
and then we need to dive off.

He's a tall dude.

He's going to be a lot taller
in here,

his length from the shoulder
to his elbow I'm sure
is longer than mine.

I want to cut down
and come back here.

Okay.
I see what you're saying.

[dave] so that kind of
exactly ties in

with this door panel design.

That all brings
all of that together

because that shape lends
itself really nice
to this shape

that I got going through
the door panels
and the door pulls.

[daniel]
so from the side view,
it's not just a line.

-Yeah, yeah.
-Okay.

Dave wants
something different.

He wants it thinner
and I've got to make it
skinnier on top.

And then almost like angled
and then straight again,
the same, only different.

[dave] this is
definitely going to cause
a little bit more work,

but well worth it.

It won't just look better,
but it'll be a lot more
comfortable for my client.

Well, right on, man,
you're moving right along,
fellas.

I like that shape
a lot better.

Do you mind if I jump in?

Nope, you want
a steering wheel?

Yeah, please.

-That one.
-Yep?

Ouch. That's sharp.

-Yeah, don't touch that part.
-Yeah, right.

I think it's perfect.

The second attempt
on the center console
now fits the design perfectly

and is really starting
to take shape

and make the whole interior
look perfect.

Very cool.

Yeah.
Great job, man.

This is... This looks good.

-Thanks.
-It's really good.

I'll buy you a beer.

You've earned it.

Now or?

No, not now.

The foundation is almost there
on this pantera,
and now the exciting part,

to figure out exactly
how the outside
is going to go.

We put the car down
on the ground now,

got the tires mocked up
on our kickass jigs.

We've cut
the fender flares off.

We're putting them out
where we'd like to see them,

want to make sure
all the proportions work.

So sometimes what works well
on paper doesn't necessarily
work well in real life.

[will] so, we'll waste
a couple of rolls of tape,
get a good visual on here.

I think it's rad.

This mock-up portion
of building a car
is usually the funnest for me.

-How does that look
right there, cliff?
-[cliff] awesome.

[will] stick it.

The cardboard has
some structure,
so we're going to use it

for our rocker area,
get that sorted out.

[dave] to the bottom
of the fender, oh,
there you go, right behind.

Keep going,
keep going, right there.

I'm hoping for major changes
on this car,

but I want them
to look very subtle.

I still want it to look like
something that would have been

in 1972 pantera with just
a little bit blown-out sides.

I want to make sure
it looks good
from every angle.

Down about two and a half,
three inches,

and then we're going
to go back to that.

Yeah, just go all the way
up to that back corner.

Once the tape is all in place,
that's when
the real magic starts.

I can stand back
and look at it
from different angles

and make sure that
what I want to put on paper

exactly is what I'm going
to get in real life.

Early first impression,
it's nice to get it down
on the on the ground

so we can see
what we're looking, you know,
what we're overall looking at.

I know he's been
dreaming about this pantera
in his head for a long time.

Hopefully, we're heading
in the right direction.

I wanted something
that's very aggressive, wide.

The roof is 44 inches,
so super short, super long,

like overall has
a different feel
and different look to it.

[dave] it's important for me
to really take a look

and use my imagination
and determine,
am I doing too much?

We don't want one
that looks like the '80s
pantera gtss

where they were just
a massive fender tub.

So.

Am I not doing enough?

I still want it to look like
a pantera.

We don't want to put
too much modern stuff to it.

So as far as the outward
appearance.

[kevin]
pantera is a super-iconic car.

Everyone has an opinion
on them.

You can go way too far
or you can not do enough
to stand out in the crowd.

We got our work
cut out for us.

The only thing I see is
now the car just looks long.