When an Argentinean car is built in Italy with 5.7 litres of throbbing Detroit V8 muscle, you know that you're going to be in for an interesting ride.

And when that car was famously shot by Elvis Presley when it failed to start one morning, the plot thickens.

That car is the De Tomaso Pantera; a piece of automotive exotica every bit as seductive as a Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche, and one that makes Stuart Milne's heart skip a beat.

The first Pantera rolled off its Italian production line in 1971, and was one of the first truly international supercars ever made. Using similar materials and workers as its neighbours in Modena (the home of Ferrari), its Argentinean founder Alejandro De Tomaso took advantage of his close relationship with Ford to supply him with gutsy V8 engines.

It looks sensational today, so it is hard to imagine the reactions that it would have received at its launch in 1971 - especially given that I was born a full eight years later. But it was the way that it went that really shone.

At its heart was a pure muscle car engine. The original 5.7 litre V8 that sat behind the seats produced some hair-raising performance. Plant the accelerator, and the lucky pilot would be passing the 60mph 5.5 seconds later and on to a top speed of 159mph. Prodigious performance, but it did cost the same as the average house at the time.

And that's not even mentioning the primeval growl that would ring from its engine and exhaust. The sound which became known as the Pantera sound, could shake the ground beneath its wheels and could - more than likely - wake the dead.

Later models would get even scarier - and faster. The last-of-the-line GT5 S examples that Auto Trader is currently advertising are generally regarded as the best Panteras ever made; shaving 0.1 seconds from the 0-60 time and raising the top speed to 165mph. And for a minimum of £50,000, you'd expect them to be too.

As the respected American magazine, Car and Driver eloquently said in 1984: "This here ain't no Little Bo-Peep car. It's no breathless blue-blood bunny banger for tripping ever so daintily down the lane. This is a car for kicking ass." And amen to that.

So if you've got between 50 and 75 grand burning a hole and fancy "kicking ass", check out what Auto Trader has to offer.

Read previous Look at the Wheels on That columns.