Thursday 25th March 2010

Panoz To Launch New Sports Car At Le Mans

La Sarthe is the chosen location for new 'Abruzzi' sports car

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What the Abruzzi could look like...

US sports car maker Panoz is due to unveil an all-new sports car called the Abruzzi at this June’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Don Panoz, father of the company’s founder Danny, revealed the plans at the Sebring 12-hour race in Florida last weekend. This sketch (right) recently popped up on a Panoz forum, and apparently comes from a former Panoz designer, though it is not an official image.

Panoz is most famous on the European side of the Atlantic for its Le Mans campaigns in the late nineties and early noughties (with a fifth place overall finish in 2000).

...and what the Esperante does look like

But Panoz also has a road car business. The mainstay of this is the Esperante sports car, which is powered by a 300bhp 4.6-litre Ford V8. Whether the Abruzzi will replace or supplement this is as yet unknown.

Other details are also scarce, although it is thought that the series production car will spawn a GT2-spec competition version. Considering Panoz’s racing heritage, it’s probably a fair bet…

[djt100]

I just looked at the website, $130,000 is a lot for a posh kit car... And not a nice looking one at that

[McAndy]

Esperante/Tuscan...interesting. Would be good to see them with a new racing car.

[soad]

Both cars look quite tasty to me. Would be nice to see some proper photos in a near future instead of all these sketches.

[vintageracer01]

Great move if they sound as the Le Mans racers did.

[Belfast Boy]

Panoz, hmm, never noted for their sexy cars have they?

[Johnpidge]

TVR crashed into Halfrods to me

[Daston]

vintageracer01 said:

Great move if they sound as the Le Mans racers did.

Aye you could tell if they were still running or not from the camp just by the exhaust note.

[tstas]

looks bit like a mixture of a corvette and a 599 from the front.

[thirsty]

tstas said:

looks bit like a mixture of a corvette and a 599 from the front.

It looks like they based the design on the old Sting Ray. I think it looks good. Much better than the current model.

[s2driveruk]

good to see something new announced...i never really rated the looks of the esperante even in the LM spec, having said that not much was ever going to compare to the old batmobile or the lmp versions.

So long as they have the distinctive exhaust thunder then alls good in my book :-)

For those never exposed to it or wander what the fuss was all about.....plug your laptop into the surround system, wind up the subwoofer, crank the volume up and enjoy lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U86lf-LRXiE

[teen_cerbera]

"What the Abruzzi could look like"

You mean A Cerbera/Corvette Mungrel?

[vetteheadracer]

Don Panoz is the man who owns the American Le Mans Series and the GT2 Class is the place to be this year so I would fully expect them to have a GT2 racer built and ready for the 2011 season.
The Panoz LMP1 "battleship" was the best sounding car at Le Mans in 2000, the Esperante was also quite competitive in GT2 in the ALMS over a number of years without ever really winning anything.

[cazzer]

Now....that is a Panoz.....

Edited by cazzer on Friday 26th March 09:03

[Roberty]

Are they still going!

Some great sounding racing cars but some butt ugly road cars.

Stick to the racing, please.

[Macboy]

I had an all too long driving experience in a Panoz driving back from Las Vegas to Los Angeles with the team from and American car mag after a group test involving my Aston Martin back in 1996. Driving the Panoz at speed in the rain on highway was bad enough as I was trying to keep up with the test team but my ever dampening feet were a sign of worse to come.

By the time the rain had almost overwhelmed the wipers (which didn't seem to be difficult) I had my very own dash mounted waterfall as water poured from the dial surrounds and radio edge. The cabin was soaked and much laughter ensued at the driver change point .I graciously agreed to keep going and not inflict the car on anyone else. Truly one of the worst cars you could buy new then and a miracle that they continued to produce them. Don Panoz has very deep pockets.

[Salgar]

What the Abruzzi could look like...

[GrahamG]

I had an Esperante GTLM (The supercharged 4.6 litre Ford V8 engined variant)for a week a few years back and it was a great drive - in fairness to the poster above I didn't have too much in the way of poor weather (but it coped very well with the odd shower)

We took it up Highway One from LA up to Monterey for the Laguna Seca ALMS race and it behaved beautifully, went like a rocket propelled train, sounded fantastic, and generally gave me very, very little little to feed back on the negative side.

The week before btw we toured the factory, again I was impressed, build quality looked good, certainly better than many others I've experienced.

Hopefully things have moved on somewhat since 1996 then!

[militantmandy]

cazzer said:

Now....that is a Panoz.....

Edited by cazzer on Friday 26th March 09:03

One of the ugliest cars ever produced!

[cazzer]

militantmandy said:

cazzer said:

Now....that is a Panoz.....

Edited by cazzer on Friday 26th March 09:03

One of the ugliest cars ever produced!

Noooooo....it's lovely

[McAndy]

Hideous in a captivating kinda way ^^^