What was the first Panoz vehicle built?
The 1990 Panoz Roadster was the first car in the Panoz stable. Based on a chassis by the legendary Frank Costin, the Roadster was armed with a front/mid-mounted five-liter Ford V8 and was the first production car in the U.S. to use a Superplastic formed aluminum body. Panoz became the first American manufacturer to design and build a production Aluminum Intensive Vehicle when the original Roadster was completely redesigned in 1996. The conventional steel space-frame was replaced with an advanced twin-tiered extruded aluminum chassis and the pushrod cast-iron engine set aside for an all-aluminum, 305-horsepower 32-valve V8. The A.I.V. Roadster would carry the torch for the company for more than three years.
