The DeTomaso Pantera debuts an automatic gearbox disguised as a manual one

The motoring world has undergone all kinds of changes in recent years, leaving behind innovations that gradually take hold and others that struggle to do so. Today it is electric powertrains, fake exhausts and simulated sounds; but not long ago it was the wave of automatic gearboxes, a type of transmission that has been adopted with diligence. Yet there are cars such as the DeTomaso Pantera, courtesy of the coachbuilder Ares Design, which wants to disguise this trend behind a simulated manual gearshift in the old-school way.

And the truth is that we recognise the Italian coachbuilder has done a masterful design job in bringing the Pantera back to life. We can see how it respects numerous original elements that are carried into modern times with great mastery, although that does not stop us from focusing our full attention on an automatic gearbox that seeks to mimic a manual gear lever with a gated shifter.

We do not criticise the existence of an automatic supercar, especially considering its ability to change gears efficiently and quickly. And although our essence as dyed-in-the-wool petrolheads leads us to cry out for a manual DeTomaso Pantera, we “forgive” the presence of a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox inherited from the Lamborghini Huracán, the model on which it is based.

What we find harder to overlook is the fact that the gear selector has been conceived as a manual gated gearbox, which, while fitting perfectly aesthetically with the retro touch Ares Design has given it, we don’t like the disguise it applies to the automatic gearbox. The fact that it is an automatic is already given away by the large, imposing paddle shifters positioned behind the steering wheel.

Be that as it may, the automatic gearbox offers, in a six-speed arrangement, “D”, “N”, sequential shifting for downshifting and upshifting, “P” and “R” respectively. In addition, controlling it is the engine start/stop button, a superb naturally aspirated V10 that roars like few powerplants do.

And the whole package is, to say the least, attractive, which makes it somewhat disheartening that they have opted for this solution. Call me nitpicky, but the presence of a manual gearbox -entirely feasible with the 5.2-litre V10 from the Group Volkswagen- would make the DeTomaso Pantera even more complete. Anyway, first-world problems.