Kill Bills Silver Car

[Lakehaze]

In Kill Bill 2, there is a scene where bill is talking to micheal madson cowboy character, there is a line, 'She deserves her revenge..." u know on the porch of cowboys trailer in the desert. Anyway, in the background, out of focus, is what I'm guessing is bills car waiting patiently in the driveway. What on earth is it?! Iv'e never seen anything like it.
-Look below for the only ittybitty pic i've found...
Just in case I mess up the image upload, ill describe it. Its silver, a real nice silver like an old mercedes sl500 or delorian, hell it could be polished metal for all I know. It had a split rear window like a 67 stingray and basically had the shape and design of a 70's/80's exotic.
I've looked all over the net and have only found one page that asks what it is, and only one picture, some promo image of bill (caradene)standing in the desert, phantom car behind him. The image.name is 'Bills Car', lol.
I am completely blown away, any ideas?



Thanks in advance

[CarSuperfreak]

I think its a pantera

[lamehonda]

Originally Posted by CarSuperfreak

I think its a pantera

I agree, a pretty nice one at that

[tanner07]

Doesn't look like a Pantera to me...

And FYI, it was the 1963 Corvette that had a split rear window.

[Lakehaze]

Good Guess, but not quite, still i could never have found it without ur help

Its a DeTomaso Mangusta ('66-'71), the DeTomaso Pantera's Pappy, before the Pantera became the Ford Pantera. Its amazing what you can find online once you have a solid lead.

I did some research on it as I've never heard of this car, as some others may bot have, and this is what I found. DeTomaso is an Exotic producer with at least a plant in Modena Italy. It now produces the 'Guara', an odd looking machine that really works out better on paper. The Pantera was produced from 71 to 91(?) during which Ford and DeTomaso had a divorce (1973?) and Ford got the kid (pantera). Before the Pantera was the Mangusta, which had a comparably shorter run from 66 to 71. Both the Pantera and the Mangusta were furnished with ford mechanicals, alot of which were shared by the GT40. In fact, a search on ebay returned a repair manual for the Mangusta/Pantera/GT40 ZF Tranny, along with some pantera's (no mangusta's) which ran from 25 - 32 grand (thats in ebay dollars). Despite the relationship with Ford, only 250 Mangusta's were sold in the states. The name itself may be the most interseting fact, as it was in spite of freindly competition with the Ford/Shelby Cobra, the Mongoose being the only creature that inspires fear in a Cobra... (Pantera I believe is Panther and Guara is a breed of hunting dog)

Bills Mangusta came to be in the film because of Caddilac. Caradine (Bill) had pushed to use 'the' Caddy Sien concept vehicle for his characters film. The producers aproached Caddilac, but Caddy refused, only later to demand 1 million dollars in exchange. The film didn't even think about it. Now I understand that this was a valuable one off concept, but it was a perfect opportunity to get a beautiful and free Caddy comercial, they dropped the ball. Caradines second choice was the Mangusta, which he proposed to Quintin who liked it even better than the Cien.

Below are some larger pics i found of THE car. The white car is a Pantera for reference, I like the Mangusta much better. If you've seen the movie, then you know its easy to miss the Mangusta. Its really too bad, they seemed to intend for it to be in the film more (check out all that lighting effort in the top-left), I can't believe they didn't even show it in focus... Below the image are some resources I pulled from.

[Lakehaze]

Thats funny, you posted while i was writing that... Thanks for the 63 correction, Im not all up to date on my vettes, but the body style stayed until 68, right?

[Lakehaze]

Last one , i promise..
Again, for those unfamiliar...killer...

NOW LETS SEE THE VETTE DO THAT! LOL

[tanner07]

Originally Posted by Lakehaze

Thats funny, you posted while i was writing that... Thanks for the 63 correction, Im not all up to date on my vettes, but the body style stayed until 68, right?

Yup, 1st gen 'Vettes ran from 1953 to 1962, and the 2nd gen took off in 1963. The split window of '63 caused difficulty in rear visibility, resulting in poor sales. If people would only have only known The split window was dropped in '64, and the last year of the second generation Corvette was 1967.

On another note, that red Mangusta appears to have a bent muffler. Thanks for all the info on it, though Lakehaze. Have you ever seen a Pantera in real life? Until a few weeks ago, I had only ever seen them parked. Then one showed up at a local Show & Shine....man did that thing ever sound bad-ass