Panoz Celebrates Its 25th Birthday With An Esperante

Panoz is a relatively unknown name to the masses, and for a good reason: while they do build road cars, most of their success has been on track. Among racing fans, Panoz is well-known for making fast and reliable cars, having won Le Mans and ALMS a few times.

To celebrate its 25th year in business, Panoz just unveiled a special version of its only road-going car, the Esperante. This vehicle has had the same styling for the last 15 years.

Under the skin however, this is a technologically-advanced sports car. Two versions are available, and both feature V8 engines that started life at Ford, but have been thoroughly worked over by Elan Motorsport. The base model pumps out 430 horsepower, while the GT version adds a supercharger to bring that number to 560. If you need even more juice, there are ways to convince Elan to drop one of their 800+ horsepower racing mills into your car.

The Esperante is made out of aluminium, and is equipped with an advanced suspension: hollow sway bar, tubular suspension arms and nitrogen-filled shocks should help you stay on the asphalt.

Only 25 of these cars will be built this year, so if you are ready to spend $175,000 US (or $204,000 for the GT model), act now!