What happened to the Panoz LMP?

[DanJR1]

why did they leave the LMP class?

[Truckosaurus]

Do we have a prize for the most open ended query?

Whatever the reasons, and I suspect there were many, they've done pretty well in their new 'home' in GT2.

[The Badger]

Yeah ..... big shame that was . Their LMP1 was about one of the most crowd pleasing LMP's ive ever seen !!!

I reckon they left , cuz they eventually found out that Audi was too strong to beat with that car and the cost of building a new beast was maybe a little out of their budget .

[TheNewBob]

Plus the car was pretty old come '02-03 kinda time..?

[ss_collins]

They must be overdue a return??

Elan are well capable of building one so why not???

[b1ackcr0w]

I think it was mostly a case of risk vurses reward. IIRC, the Andy Thorby designed LMP07 didn't work well, and caused Panoz to go unrecoverably backward compared to Audi. And it makes a point about that whole class. Going up against Audi means you either throw money at it to build a better R10 (which might be impossible and is likely to fail). OR you try and do what Panoz did and go ultra radical and gamble that you hit on something new nobody else had spotted, again obviously risky and likely to fail.

In short why not spend less money on a class to you have a viable chance of sucess in? After all, that's exactly what Audi have done by staying in prototyes and out of F1.

[old man]

Originally Posted by b1ackcr0w

In short why not spend less money on a class to you have a viable chance of sucess in? After all, that's exactly what Audi have done by staying in prototyes and out of F1.

Big fish, little pond syndrome for Audi,

In GT2 last year Panoz had some v lucky breaks but did what they set out to do, finish races

[AU N EGL]

Originally Posted by b1ackcr0w

In short why not spend less money on a class to you have a viable chance of sucess in? After all, that's exactly what Audi have done by staying in prototyes and out of F1.

Marketing.

Panoz sells a fair number of Elans. So GT2 is a huge marketing venue for them.

[The359]

I think you mean Esperantes. Elan makes the engines.

[AU N EGL]

Originally Posted by The359

I think you mean Esperantes. Elan makes the engines.

What ever

[ss_collins]

Elan is the company behind the racing cars and is owned by the Panoz empire.

[brihev]

Bring back a remake of the GTR1!!

[Justin Moran]

Originally Posted by brihev

Bring back a remake of the GTR1!!

Quite possably the loudest and most ear splitting sound I ever heard at a race meeting!

[dj choc ice]

and the remade GTR1 would be dog slow probably, sullying panoz race reputation but a great treat for the ears.

i think panoz withdrew from LMP1 mainly because in 2003 the car was reaching the end of its competitive life, by 03 they were struggling against the audi R8's with the modified aero packages and wider track.

panoz probably saw it from a business standpoint, they could make more money by making a competitive, front running GT2 car and selling them to customer teams.

but thats my opinion, there is probably bazillions of reasons possible

[jhansen]

Well the LMP07 effort certainly didn't help their cause. Surely that was an expensive endeavor. After the LMP1 ceased to be competitive it probably made more sense to go GT2 racing considering their business model. However, a Panoz prototype team certainly would have been more beneficial to the series these past few years.

[dj choc ice]

it sure would have been, ALMS is in a spot of bother in LMP1, especially GT1, but with the advent of intersport in P1 in the ALMS with the creation CA06H judd things arent looking as grim.

personally i would love to see a new panoz LMP1 or LMP2 car, especially with a super loud rumbly V8 engine

[JHamilton]

Don't forget it must spit 3ft flame out the sides as well.

[b1ackcr0w]

Truth be told (and I loved it as much as anybody I know), the LMP01/Roadster S was out of date as early as '01. It was only very spirited or genius drives by Brabham,Magnussen & Katoh that flattered it. I think that the LMP07 problems came as a complete shock, on paper it really should have been very competitive. It seemed to me that it sapped the team's morale and will as well as it's finances.

FWIW - Despite it's lack of Le Mans Sucess, I think the LMP01 had something special that earned in the history books and the hearts of Sportscar fans everywhere.

[chernaudi]

Well, in '99 it was as fast as the Toyotas. But the Audi R8 was far better overall than the Toyota GT-One. And it was Panoz trying to beat Audi that lead to the LMP07. Most of the car's problems was that it used the Zytec ZB408 engine, which used a flatplane crankshaft, and shook the car apart. It was also a tall as the 351ci/5.8liter Ford based 6liter OHV small block V8 that it replaced.

Audi had no problems with the use of a flatplane crank, but their engine turned such low RPMs that it wasn't a problem(Audi R8 3.6 TFSI redline: 6250-7000, Zytec 4 liter redline, about 9300).

[dj4monie]

Yeah, the old girl was LOUD, very LOUD but she was NEVER getting cheated in top speed. Old Man Jack knows how to build Ford engines daddy and he never disapointed.

The LMP01 and the Batmoblie had as much grunt as anything else every to have pushrods.

And it hussled that car down Muslanse with authority, you can see it in any video...

Pretty darn good for 50 year old American technology...

But yes, they threw all their eggs in the basket with the 07 and it was flawed, badly.

Don just couldn't see putting more money into and stepped back. In fairness to Panoz, the roadster didn't have much in common with the street going car for the most part. At least the Batmoblie looked like the street car in a sort of cartoonish/NHRA Funny Car sort of way.

In any case, in the anlles of sportcar racing lore, she has her place in history assured.

[JHamilton]

If you have any more pics or vids, could you please post them or links to them? All I have is a few pics I took here and there and vids are very difficult to come by.

[The Badger]

Im looking for some LMP1 Panoz wallpaper or big pics ?

A video would be nice , just to remind me . Lovely machine .

[gttouring]

Thorby has mentioned on Mulsannescorner- that the project wasn't finished, and rushed a bit.
He would love to have a crack at it to make it work better
(could Panoz do it with a 4 litre turbo?)
or the R8 turbo up front? after all there was an Esperante twin turbo built that had an audi motor up front instead of the usual ford...
why not rty that in the LMP01 just to see- cheaper- known good chassis and motor- of course with out the sound is it still the Panoz?
That was awesome.

[class4v]

End 2004 their was a discussion between Panoz and Courage to develop a P1 project together. But from what I've heard Panoz wanted still to use his older V8 engine which was difficult to install in a new modern chassis and there were no funds to develop something new.

[TheNewBob]

Only video I've seen so far is this very short one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuqQGo4a-wg