RE: Panoz Esperante lives!

[XB70]

Just saw it this evening as well at the Dubai motor show and was talking to the engineer on stand. Actually looks very impressive in the flesh and very imposing from the front.

[fatandwheezing]

Jimmy Recard said:

It's brilliant. I saw one at Spa in 2004 (owned by Noel Edmonds, I think) and it was by far the loudest thing there. You couldn't hear anything of the Pescarolos or Audi R8s and the others when that Panoz was anywhere near.

Noel "Tidyest Beard in the Business" was in a documentary about his Le Mans campaign. I remember him looking completely knackered.

[RB Will]

Love it! Always been one of my favourite cars. Saw the open topped ones at Silverstone many rears back and as said the noise was second to none there.
It's even part of my dogs kennel club name as the breeder wanted to use car names beginning with E.

[DonkeyApple]

Digga said:

vz-r_dave said:

Regardless of how it looks, I love it and I love what it stood for back when Le Mans wasn't full of ste diesels and hybrids. The sound they made was better than the vette's of today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U86lf-LRXiE have a listen 1:50 onwards is brilliant.

^This. Early noughties LMP1 was greatly enlivened by their participation.

FWIW, that bass (having camped in Houx Annexe and spectated at various points around the circuit when they were running) captures about 10% of the bass of that engine. Zorsts the diameter of old dustbins.

They were noisy bds weren't they. . The whole weekend there was no escaping that sound.

I always remember them as V10 though?

[RB Will]

I think Panoz have always been V8 Thunder. Vipers are V10

[DonkeyApple]

RB Will said:

I think Panoz have always been V8 Thunder. Vipers are V10

Yup. I'm sure that's the case. It's just odd that it's always stuck in my head that it was a V10. God knows why. Seeing as it was Le Mans the likely answer is that I was talking about one car any my mate was talking about another and thanks to quality German Marching lager we were none the wiser.

[Digga]

DonkeyApple said:

They were noisy bds weren't they. . The whole weekend there was no escaping that sound.

As another poster has said, when you were close enough to the track, even with ear defenders, you knew they were there because you could percieve all of the individual bits of your guts and gizzards being jumps around like a bucket of frogs.

Every year I went, I always wondered how any of us would ever get any sleep on the Saturday night/Sunday morning. Stupid thing to think - alcohol always trumps racket, eventually.

[SteveSteveson]

They will build one? Euro millions ticket time... One in black please.

[Nhoj66]

I think it looks amazing, especially the pic of the purple one. As far as I'm concerned, you can never look "too Batmobile!"

[Newro]

Does it come in black?