Overview & Reviews

Panoz is an automobile manufacturer whose sexy sports cars are exotics in the truest sense of the word. The company's cars are drop-dead gorgeous and come with steep price tags; additionally, given the fact that a relatively small number of Panoz vehicles are made each year, a Panoz offers more exclusivity than your typical Ferrari or Bentley. Panoz makes only sports cars and its current lineup consists of just one model, the Esperante, available in both roadster and coupe body styles. Introduced in 2001 and relatively unchanged since then, the Esperante is hand-built and made mostly of aluminum.

The Panoz story begins with Eugene Panunzio, a champion boxer who emigrated to the U.S. from Italy in the early 1900s. He shortened his last name to Panoz and settled in West Virginia. In 1960 his son Donald started the Mylan Laboratories pharmaceutical company; nine years later, Donald and his family moved to Ireland where he started another drug company, called Elan Pharmaceuticals. Donald's 26-year-old car-enthusiast son, Daniel, ended up working for the Thompson Motor Company (TMC) in 1988. TMC went out of business that same year and Donald bought the rights to one of its chassis, which was designed by Frank Costin, an engineer who'd made a name for himself building racecar chassis for Maserati and Lotus.

The next year saw the birth of the Panoz Automotive Development Company. A small, renovated salt storage shed located near Atlanta was the site of company headquarters. In 1990, Panoz brought out its first car, a powerful, cycle-fendered roadster called simply the Panoz Roadster. Initially, the Panoz cars were only produced to order, and hence not many were made. By 1996, the Roadster, now called the AIV Roadster, saw full production. The following year Panoz introduced the Esperante racecar, which saw success in USRRC and American Le Mans racing series. By the end of the decade, the Panoz family empire had grown to include racing venues, the American Le Mans series and a racing school.

In 2001, the Esperante became available as a street car. On its hood was the company's crest that was created by Daniel Panoz himself. The red, white and blue coloring indicates that the company is based in the U.S. Its swirls are a nod to the Japanese yin-yang symbol, while the shamrock points to the roots of the first chassis Panoz developed. The Esperante was produced through 2006 and was available in various roadster and coupe configurations. Though Panoz hasn't had a U.S. presence since then, by the end of the decade it showed it wasn't dead in a big way by creating the limited-production Abruzzi Spirit of Le Mans. The latter was a 600-horsepower supercar slated solely for the European market.

User Reviews:

Showing 1 through 10 of 20.00

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  With a Panoz You Get a Poke in the Nose - 2003 Panoz Esperante
  By Panoz - July 19 - 6:43 am

  My thought when my wife wanted a new Jaguar was that the Jags looked a lot like the Ford Tauras at the time. I thought that if we bought a sexy very good looking sports car like the Panoz it not only would not look so common but hopfully hold more of its value. I was wrong. The cars style unargueably is very good. They forgot to put any shocks on it though and therefore it is very, very, very rough to drive. The other thing is the convertible roof of the car is is not well designed and it rattles a lot when driving. The worst part of owning the Panoz is the resale value. There is none. Dont buy one unless you can afford to lose $80,000 really fast.

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  Where do I put the kids?! - 2003 Panoz Esperante
  By Cool Cat - January 3 - 10:00 am

  My wife and I bought this car before we thought about where we were going to put the kids. As it turns out we can only fit the two older boys in the trunk comfortably. Our daughter has to be strapped to the hood.