Panoz Roadster History

The Panoz Roadster was the company's debut model, built from 1992 at its small factory north of Atlanta. Dan Panoz had bought the rights to a tube-frame chassis design rooted in the work of British engineer Frank Costin (known for Lotus, Lister, and Maserati chassis), and clothed it in a hand-formed aluminum body to create a minimalist, lightweight two-seater.

True to its stripped-back ethos, the Roadster was sold with no top and no tonneau cover — and no provision for either. Power came from Ford's 5.0-liter (302 cu in) V8, the engine of the contemporary Mustang, paired with a Borg-Warner T-5 five-speed manual. Production was tiny: only about 44 Roadsters were built before the model gave way to the aluminum-intensive AIV version in the mid-1990s.