Let’s start with a short introduction to this car. 302-400 horsepower. An all Aluminum frame. 2600 lbs (1200kg). A tiny steering wheel, no ABS, no stability control. Fully independent suspension. The front is bespoke, design by the company themselves, while the rear is dropped right out of the terminator cobra. And it raced in GT1 racing. (unrelated but at the late 90’s point in GT1 the only shared parts were the occasional tail light, looking at you AMG and Porsche). And to make it even more mad? All of this is built in a shed behind the Road Atlanta track, one of the best tracks in the US.

Well there it is, stuck away in the suburban sprawl. Where racetracks preserve the forests better than housing does. That’s northern GA for you, a once beautiful rolling forest turned into a 200 square mile strip mile until you make it to the foots of the mountains. Well on the bright side, we have this wonderful car to drown our sorrows. In the early 2000’s when magazines got to test the prototype the tires of the time were not down for the challenge of getting this ratio down through the 5 speed gearbox (a truly awful 4 speed auto was also available, but its entirely useless, and luckily, nobody ordered one, or at least I never saw one for sale). This car truly embodies the spirit of the older Shelby cobras but for the modern day. Because its what I love and what I know about, we will now move on to my favorite part about the car. Its slightly strange racing record. As for its actual Leman’s attempt, not much came of it. The cars engines were not up for the task of 24 hour racing. But here at home, it made a much happier run.

The cars debut was unimpressive, lasting 108 laps around Sebring. But it more than made up for it on the next round. At 6 hours of Watkins glen, the odd GA built “hypercar” pulled off a overall and class win. After that? it won overall at Sonoma and Lacuna Seca. However as unsurprising as ever, Porsche won the contractors title for the season with the small American outfit coming in second. A Highly worthy effort against the German juggernaut. And hey, they still have their super interesting shop floating around. And straight from wikipedia for the next fact, its a racing series I had yet to hear about. So i’ll let the real experts take it from here.
“the factory Panoz team fought hard with Porsche in the GT class, winning the class in three of the five events in the season but losing to Porsche in the manufacturers championship by a mere three points, although it won the teams championship. In IMSA, Panoz was more dominant as they won seven of the eight races, including taking an overall win at the rain drenched Sebring Fall Festival in October. This earned them the constructors and teams championship for the season.”
Yeah. 3 points away from an all out victory. I’m pretty proud of the little outfit for managing that.

Oh look who that is, a GTR1, which placed second in the European DAMS endurance racing series

Yeah, this is pretty damn incredible for such a tiny effort. Lest we forget, a shed in rural GA competing with Germanies finest back-flippers. So what about the road cars? They were not half bad. Albeit the GT2 effort was quite frankly, a failure. Oh and the next fun fact of the day? the chassis was bonded and riveted aluminum, just like airplane construction. Making it quite a challenge to ever truly total this oddball sports car. 330 of these wonderful things made it to the road, at a price of 80k each. In early 2000’s money. Not a bad effort at all Mr Panoz. A second generation of the roadster has come to truly maximize the absolute madness of it. Choices include a Coyote, LT4, or a blown 6+ liter small block. Yeah, just try to keep it on the road. Not sure whole the bonded aluminum holds up in a car most certainly faster than any single engined cessna put into the sky.

3150 lbs, at minimum 550hp from a Coyote or LSx. Prices start at an inflation saddened 159,000$

But hey, at the end of the day. This oddball is truly a unique experience. The Porsche will always be the superior daily, more refined. But this is built on the passion of one single madman, a man whose truly can say he rivaled the germans during a golden era of international motorsport. If you can say “i can afford this” you already have a Porsche. Go have some fun, and maybe invest in a class or two to help you keep it straight.