Forza Horizon 6 unleashes the 1984 De Tomaso Pantera GT5 during Italian Exotics

Forza Horizon 6 is putting one of the 1980s’ most aggressive Italian supercars on the hunt with the arrival of the 1984 De Tomaso Pantera GT5. Its exaggerated proportions, wide-body styling and American V8 power make it a natural fit for the open roads of Japan, where it can finally escape the restrictions of a conventional racing circuit.

The Pantera GT5 is available as a Festival Playlist reward during the Summer Season of the Italian Exotics Series. Players must earn 20 PTS between July 16 and July 23 to add it permanently to their garage.

That relatively accessible requirement makes the Pantera one of the first major rewards of Series 3, but its importance goes beyond another vehicle joining the expanding Forza Horizon 6 roster. The GT5 represents a distinctive philosophy: Italian supercar design powered not by a highly strung European engine, but by a large Ford V8 positioned directly behind the driver.

Italian design meets an American V8

The Pantera has always occupied an unusual place in automotive history.

De Tomaso created a low, mid-engined Italian sports car but powered it with American muscle. Instead of relying on the smaller, more complex engines usually associated with European exotics, the Pantera used a Ford V8 that offered substantial torque, a familiar mechanical foundation and a completely different soundtrack.

That dual identity is central to the car’s appeal in Forza Horizon 6. Visually, the Pantera belongs alongside the angular supercars that defined the late 1970s and 1980s. Mechanically, it carries the attitude of a traditional American performance car.

The 1984 GT5 featured in the game uses a 5.8-litre Ford engine producing 310 bhp and 330 lb-ft of torque. Power is sent to the rear wheels, preserving the uncomplicated and potentially unforgiving character expected from a classic mid-engined supercar.

It is a combination that should make the Pantera immediately recognisable behind the wheel. Rather than delivering the clinical acceleration, electronic control and all-wheel-drive stability of a modern exotic, the GT5 offers mechanical power through a chassis created long before contemporary driver-assistance systems became standard.

The GT5 turned the Pantera into something more intimidating

The original Pantera was already a striking car, but the GT5 transformed its appearance.

Introduced as a more aggressive evolution of De Tomaso’s most successful model, the GT5 received an extensive body kit with dramatically widened wheel arches, a redesigned front section, side skirts and a large rear wing. Its proportions became broader, lower and more closely connected to the competition cars that had expanded the Pantera’s reputation beyond the road.

Those changes are more than cosmetic decoration. The wide rear bodywork allows the GT5 to sit over substantially larger wheels and tyres, reinforcing the sense that the car has been built around its engine and rear-driven layout.

In Forza Horizon 6, that shape gives the Pantera a visual presence that few contemporary cars can replicate. Its body is not defined by smooth aerodynamic surfaces or subtle active components. Everything is visible: the flared arches, exposed transitions, deep front spoiler and oversized rear wing.

The GT5 looks less like a carefully refined luxury object and more like a road car that has absorbed the influence of endurance racing and never attempted to hide it.

A 20-point reward makes the Pantera easy to overlook but costly to miss

Players can unlock the Pantera GT5 by earning 20 PTS during the Summer Season of the Italian Exotics Festival Playlist.

That is a modest requirement compared with the larger seasonal totals attached to some of Series 3’s headline cars. It should be achievable through a relatively small selection of championships, challenges and other Festival Playlist activities.

However, its limited availability makes the deadline more important than the difficulty. The Pantera is only offered between July 16 and July 23. Players who fail to complete the requirement during that window may need to wait for it to return through another playlist, special event or alternative acquisition method.

This is one of the central pressures of Forza Horizon’s seasonal structure. A car can be mechanically accessible but temporally restricted. The challenge is not necessarily proving sufficient driving ability; it is remembering to participate before the weekly reset removes the reward.

For collectors, the GT5 should therefore be treated as one of the Summer Season’s priorities. Twenty points is a low price for a car with this much historical and visual character.

The Pantera brings analogue aggression to modern Japan

Forza Horizon 6’s Japanese setting gives the GT5 a particularly strong environment in which to operate.

The Pantera was not built for a world of launch control, active torque distribution or computer-managed cornering. It comes from a more physical period of supercar engineering, where the relationship between throttle input, rear-wheel traction and weight transfer demanded greater attention from the driver.

Japan’s combination of wide expressways, mountain roads, urban routes and technical corners should expose both sides of that personality.

On faster roads, the Ford V8 can provide the sustained power and torque needed to turn the GT5 into a high-speed cruiser. In tighter sections, its mid-engined configuration and rear-wheel-drive layout should reward drivers who carefully manage braking, acceleration and balance.

The Pantera may not deliver the immediate security of the latest Ferrari or Lamborghini. That is precisely why it belongs in Horizon. Its value comes from character rather than optimisation.

A modern supercar is designed to make speed accessible. The GT5 should make speed feel mechanical, dramatic and slightly dangerous.

Its stock performance is only the beginning

The standard Pantera GT5 already offers a strong foundation for classic-road racing, but Forza Horizon’s upgrade systems allow players to decide how much of its original personality should remain.

A period-inspired build can focus on tyres, braking, suspension and manageable power improvements, preserving the Ford V8 and rear-wheel-drive configuration while making the chassis more predictable. This would retain the Pantera’s historical identity and suit players interested in classic supercar events.

A more extreme build could use the GT5’s wide stance as the basis for a substantially faster road or circuit machine. Additional power would amplify its straight-line performance, although increasing output without improving traction and stability could make the car harder to exploit on technical routes.

There is also the inevitable temptation to create a drift-oriented setup. The front-mid balance is different from that of a conventional front-engined muscle car, but the Pantera’s rear-wheel drive, torque delivery and dramatic bodywork make it a strong candidate for players who value style as much as competitive efficiency.

The most effective tune will depend on the intended class and event type. The most interesting tune, however, may be the one that improves the car without removing the qualities that make it a Pantera.

Series 3 is built around different definitions of Italian performance

The Pantera arrives during Italian Exotics, the third Festival Playlist Series in Forza Horizon 6.

The broader reward lineup demonstrates how widely Italian manufacturers have interpreted performance. The Series includes modern hybrid machinery such as the Ferrari 296 GTB, homologation icons such as the Lancia 037 Stradale, open-top supercars such as the Lamborghini Huracán EVO Spyder and extreme track-focused creations such as the Pagani Huayra R.

Within that collection, the Pantera represents an older and less conventional route.

It lacks the advanced hybrid assistance of the 296 GTB. It does not have the rally-specific engineering of the Lancia 037 or the uncompromising circuit focus of the Huayra R. Instead, it combines a European chassis and body with an American engine, producing a form of performance that belongs to neither tradition completely.

That makes it one of Series 3’s most distinctive additions. Italian Exotics is not only celebrating the most technologically advanced cars produced in Italy. It is also recognising vehicles whose appeal comes from unusual collaborations, mechanical contradictions and designs that would be difficult to reproduce under modern regulations.

The Pantera also connects Horizon and Motorsport

The 1984 De Tomaso Pantera GT5 previously appeared in Forza Motorsport through the Racing Heroes Car Pack, where its performance could be explored within a structured, circuit-focused environment.

Its inclusion in Forza Horizon 6 gives the same car a different purpose.

Motorsport emphasises lap times, controlled competition and detailed track performance. Horizon allows the Pantera to become a broader expression of automotive culture. Players can drive it through Japanese cities, take it across mountain roads, photograph it at Car Meets, customise it or build it for activities far removed from its original design brief.

That contrast demonstrates why the same vehicle can remain relevant across both Forza series. The simulation-focused environment reveals how the GT5 behaves under competitive conditions. The open-world structure reveals why someone might want to drive it even when there is no finishing line.

For a car defined by sound, appearance and unconventional engineering, Horizon may be where its personality becomes most visible.

De Tomaso’s most important model still refuses to look conventional

The Pantera became the vehicle most closely associated with De Tomaso, remaining in production through numerous versions and evolutions over more than two decades.

Its endurance came from an idea that was simple but difficult to replicate successfully: combine Italian design and chassis development with readily available Ford V8 power.

The GT5 represents one of the most visually extreme expressions of that formula. It took the original Pantera and expanded everything that made it distinctive. The body became wider, the aerodynamic elements became more aggressive and the car’s competition influence became impossible to ignore.

That history gives the Forza Horizon 6 addition more value than its 20-point requirement might suggest. The GT5 is not simply another classic supercar occupying a space between modern Festival Playlist rewards. It is the late-stage evolution of a vehicle that connected two different automotive cultures.

The hunt ends when the Summer Season does

The 1984 De Tomaso Pantera GT5 gives the opening week of Italian Exotics a reward with genuine character.

It is mechanically simple compared with the latest supercars, visually excessive even by 1980s standards and powered by an engine that seems almost deliberately at odds with its Italian body. Those contradictions are exactly what make it valuable.

Forza Horizon 6 gives the Pantera an environment where its Ford V8 can echo through tunnels, its wide body can dominate Car Meets and its rear-driven chassis can be pushed across Japan’s mountain roads.

Players only need 20 Festival Playlist points to claim it, but they have until July 23 to complete the hunt.

The Pantera GT5 does not need modern technology to demand attention. It only needs an open road and enough space for its V8 to breathe.

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