Given that the Pantera's largest market was the United States, its unfortunate that the car did not enjoy a long or particularly successful American racing career. Perhaps this stems from the car's rather short U.S. market life, and from the lack of racing development invested in it. Ford had won everything in sight in the sixties with its GT40 program, Lotus/Ford Indy cars, and Shelby's Cobras. Sports car and endurance victories were not as high on Ford's priority list as NASCAR development and (unfortunately) the first U.S. gas shortage.Hu Kleinpeter built one of the better-developed cars. Kleinpeter was involved with the distribution of ZF transaxles, so the connection with the Pantera made sense.The car featured a Can Am style fuel injection system and many fiberglass panels, but reportedly began life as a production Pantera. It was driven by Janet Guthrie in the Daytona 24 Hour enduro in 1972, but DNF'd. It was later purchased by Vic Manuelli, who drove the car to an SCCA National Championship for A-Sports Racing cars in 1981 (beating a former factory Ferrari BB512 LM in the process).

Trans Am racer Warren Tope built a car for that series in 1972. Unfortunately, Tope was killed mid-season (not in the Pantera) and the car did not win any races. It has seen some historic racing action since then.John Storey built two cars during the eighties. The first was built from a well-worn street Pantera, and was used primarily for development and club racing. Still utilizing the stock monocoque chassis (with a great deal of stiffening) this car was capable of lap times matching tube framed IMSA cars of the day. The second Storey car was a scratch built tube frame racer for IMSA's GTO class. The car was severely damaged during practice for its first race at Portland in 1986, and is currently being rebuilt.

Another tube frame and fiberglass spec racer was built by Dale Bargeman and Dennis Quella, but it was used primarily as a development tool for Quella's Pantera business. It has recently been sold, and current owner J.P. Hunter is readying the car for possible IMSA GTO and endurance competition.Chassis number 3109 was converted to SCCA Super Production specification by Robert Cleaves, however the car only competed in one season of Regional races. This was unfortunate, as the car (built by long time racers Mike Cook and Lee Mueller) was one of the most handsome and beautifully finished competition Panteras in the country.Even though few Pantera victories were chalked up on road courses, the car has faired rather well in a straight line.

Chuck Greenman attacked the Bonneville Salt Flats with a "Streamliner nosed" Pantera in 1984, and took the C-Production record at 199.09 MPH. Five years later, Gary hall and Mike Cook took the Hall Pantera GTS car to the Salt, and upped the record to over 203 MPH. This versatile machine also competed at the club racing level on road courses, and as of this writing holds the quarter mile elapsed time record for Panteras with a 10.07/140+ MPH pass at Carlsbad Raceway in September 1990.With the growth of historic racing, maybe some of these cars will "come out of the woodwork" and earn the Pantera the racing reputation it did not garner the first time around.