Panoz GT Prototype

[Logan]

Daily Sports Car are reporting that Panoz may resurrect the Panoz GTR Esperante and let Tom Milner run it with Said & Auberlen as drivers to fill the vacuum left by BMW.

Although it would be nice to see a GT1 Panoz again it seems that apart from the Bentley, the GTP category is doomed to have no new cars, only old GT1 cars re-vamped.

If it does happen I wonder if it would be the short tail '97 car or the beefier '98 version?

Logan.

[Dr. Austin]

I'm sure they would use the 98 car because it's long tail produces more downforce. However, i don't believe the car is eligable under the current rules, so they may just use the current road car that is also in TransAm, the name of which escapes me.

[KC]

They refer to the Trans Am car as the Esperante GT. I guess it technically replaced the original Esperante GTP in the lineup.

[Es Nes]

quote:
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Originally posted by Dr. Austin
I'm sure they would use the 98 car because it's long tail produces more downforce. However, i don't believe the car is eligable under the current rules, so they may just use the current road car that is also in TransAm, the name of which escapes me.
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why would the 98 be illegal?


anyways, its a joke that there are no new lmgtps. im sure everybody know by now im not the bigst closed top fan. but, im not against having more of them (i just want audi to kick more ass ). i wish toyota would sell out its cars or purhapes porsche putting a mugen v8 or its own 5l na v10 from the carrera gt4 in the 98 911 gt1.

the toyota was deffently before its time. it was a shame for them to run lemans twice with the gt-one and give up. if toyota or a proper team would change it from gt1 to lmgtp rules. whoever was running the car would be very fast and the audis would finally have a real challenge. also, if reynard got the people who made the r8s gear box help them with their lmp675 car, couldnt toyota also do the same?

one thing i dont get is why doesnt porsche or toyota sell their old gt1s? they were deffently fast and if teams were to put the money into one of them instead of the cars they laped when they were new. they would be faster with those crs than the "mobile chicane" cars.

also, ferrari used the 333sp to make more money for their f1 effort, why cant toyota do the same thing? theyve what? a 99 road car, 3 99 race cars, 33 98 race, and a 98 road car? or do they like to keep them in a private musium and think what could have been. then head off to watch their f1 program fail (hopefully)

[Es Nes]

*mumbles something about 10 minute edit span and goes off looking for a mod or admin*

[Aysedasi]

Sorry Es, only just logged on after a long day!

[Speedworx]

I agree that there are loads of GT1 cars doing nothing. The aged Ferrari 333SP still wins races and titles, why not a Toyota or Mercedes or Porsche?

[clk-lm]

Originally posted by hakkiman
why not a Toyota or Mercedes or Porsche?

because their all factory efforts, except the 911 gt1 98, two where sold to zakspeed and one of them was written off in homestead. the clr and GT-one where only factory effort and were both considered to be unsuccessful, meaning they didnt win anything. if mercedes and TTE sold these cars to privateers, and the privateers made them competitive, it would look very good on the factories part. on the other other hand porsche have always made customer cars so its almost expected, and the 333SP was built as a customer car in the first place

[clk-lm]

sorry meant to say "wouldnt look very good on the factories part"

[racer69]

I'm pretty sure that the '98 Panoz Esperante GTR1 would be legal, as any cars that conformed to GT1 rules effectively became GTP, the only difference between the two is that you don't have the road register them anymore. The old Lotus GT1 cars are returning, and Steve O'Rourke considered taking his McLaren F1 to Le Mans in 2000.

[Dr. Austin]

Sorry about the misunderstanding. I thought the thread was about Panoz running the old GT-1 car in the new GT-1 class. Of course the Esperante GT-1 from 98 would be legal and would run under the same rules as the Bentley in GTP. I'm not sure it would be competitive, though. Not with the Audi. Of course, we will always be talking about LMP/B as long as Audi is around.

I say bring back the hybrid! Advanced technology is the only hope anyone has of beating Audi. It's not going to get done with a 50 year old pushrod design. Not on merit, anyway. Someone is going to have to tear up the blueprints and get a bunch of crazed engineers to build something over the edge. Someone is going to have to really hang it out.