Dubai International Motor Show is full of first’s including a car manufacturers journey to the Middle East. This is a rather rare and unusual visit from one of America’s sport cars producers, Panoz. Founded in 1989 it’s relatively unknown except for a fair few of us who have lived in the US or watched American Sports Car Racing and I for one am glad that the one place Panoz decided to visit was Dubai.
Two models are to be built, first off is the limited run of Panoz Esperante Spyder GT’s. 25 cars are to be constructed to celebrate 25 years of the company. Very similar in design to the race winning Esperante from 2005, prices start from 289,000 US Dollars (approx 1,061,540 AED). As standard it comes packed with a V8 motor pumping out 430 horsepower. For those who would like a little more power, Panoz can crank it all the way up to 575 horsepower by attaching a supercharger. Both engines send power to the rear via a six-speed manual gearbox or an optional six-speed with paddle shifters behind the wheel.
The second car for sale is this beautiful greenish yellow Panoz GTR-1 you see in the pictures. And yes it is actually for sale for a cool 1.75 million US Dollars. One of the original cars built for driving on the road (when manufacturers entered worldwide racing series, a specific number had to built. In this case just one) in 1997! It’s been fully restored and It’s like no other car out there. It’s built on the same chassis as their race cars. A lick of paint was added, some leather and alcantara was thrown in to cover the seats and a small boot area was created big enough for a couple of sandwiches. Looking inside you can see it was originally built for racing as an area of the passenger footwell shows.
This one of a kind street machine is powered by an eight-cylinder Ford 6.0 litre petrol engine which is rated at 600 horsepower and 678 Nm of torque.
As mentioned before these are certainly unique vehicles, and no two cars are identical. If you look from the front you can see the wing mirrors on each side are not symmetrical and the doors don’t rise up to the same height. Are these a real problem though? NO! No they are not.
If you’re interested in a Panoz GT1, three to five units will be built a year for the next few years. Prices start at 890,000 US Dollars (approx 3,269,103 AED). Powering this unique machine is an 8 cylinder Ford engine and exact horsepower and other numbers haven’t been stated. However Panoz wants to give customers as much freedom as possible, meaning outputs can range from 600 to even 1000 horsepower if required. That’s something Hennessey or Bugatti don’t offer yet! The entire car is bespoke from head-to-toe, anything you want inside, Panoz can make it happen.
Both cars are to built in a very limited production as mentioned before. If you are interested in a Panoz and would like to own one, check out only one of two said to be available in the United Arab Emirates right here on Dubicars.com.
