Rare Georgia-built sports car is up for auction and comes with a supercharged SVT Cobra V8
April 14, 2025 at 08:35
- A rare American alternative to a Caterham 7 is being auctioned on Cars & Bids.
- Around 176 Panoz AIV Roadsters were built in Georgia between 1996 and 1999.
- The stock 4.6 DOHC SVT Cobra V8 was rated at 305 hp, but this one is supercharged.
Europe didn’t have a total monopoly on titchy, canyon-carving sports cars in the second half of the last century. This Panoz AIV Roadster looks like it might have come from the western shores of the Atlantic but in fact it was conceived, designed, and built in America.
You’ll be familiar with the Panoz name if you’re a fan of endurance racing or spent any time playing the early generations of Gran Turismo. Its competition cars have won as far afield as Sebring and Le Mans, and founder Don Panoz created the American Le Mans Series (ALMS).
Related: Would You Have Paid $82,500 For This Rare Panoz Esperante GTLM Coupe?
But you might be less familiar with the company’s Roadster, unless you recall a much less famous racing game, Midtown Madness. Only around 220 cars were built across two generations between 1994 and 1998; of those, 176 were the AIV Roadster you see here, which replaced the original car in 1996.
AIV stood for aluminum-intensive vehicle, a reference to the fact that the far more sophisticated gen-2 cars had an extruded aluminum spaceframe chassis instead of one made from steel tubes. But that wasn’t the only upgrade the ’96-on cars received.
Both versions used Mustang powertrains, but the AIVs switched from Ford’s pushrod 5.0-liter V8 to the DOHC 4.6 fitted to the Mustang SVT Cobra. It cranked out 305 hp (309 PS), which today is less than you get from a 2.3 Mustang Ecoboost, but was big power for the time, especially since the AIV weighed just 2,571 lbs (1,166 kg).
Photos Cars&Bids
Zero to 62 mph took less than 4.5 seconds, and the top speed was a claimed 140 mph (225 km/h). And this wine-red car that’s up for auction through Cars & Bids is probably faster, because although it wasn’t one of the handful of factory cars fitted with a supercharger, it’s been modded with one in the intervening years. There are no dyno figures in the listing, but it’s not going to be short on power or torque.
Inside, the wood – incongruous by modern standards – white dials and tan leather screams 1990s, and the view forward over the huge power bulge in the hood with the cycle fenders on either side must feel pretty special from the driver’s seat.
And from the outside? Well, you’d never call the weird mix of Light Car Company Rocket, Caterham Seven, and Shelby Cobra beautiful, but it’ll certainly turn heads. Check out the auction listing here.
Photos Cars&Bids
#Rare #American #Roadster #Heart #Mustang #Soul #Lotus
