Description

The AIV Roadster, designed around the time when most American production cars were not renowned for their handling characteristics, was a breath of fresh air to many. While the car shares many components with Ford (allowing the car to be serviced at any Ford dealership), the things most important to provide a good handling car were meticulously designed to provide a fun, stable car that was just about as quick around the bends as any other sports (or even super) cars of the time.

It employs double wishbone suspension all-round, a near 50/50 weight distribution, light weight, at around 1170kg, and comes equipped with an LSD.

The engine represents a near perfect balance between power and drive-ability, while not producing the insane figures of some modern sports cars, by no means is the car a slouch either. Straight from the Ford Mustang, the engine produces 305hp, 407Nm, enough to propel the car from 0-60mph (96km/h) in just 4.6 seconds. Aerodynamic drag does significantly inhibit the cars top speed, though, to around 135mph (217km/h).

History

Quite possibly America’s most exclusive car manufacturer, Panoz has now been around for 25 years. The Panoz Roadster was the realization of a dream by Dan Panoz, and his first production sports car.

Configuration

The car is available in a single configuration.

Technique

Driving techniques are not particularly difficult or unique to this car. It’s about as much of a fun car as you can have, control is relatively easy and drifting quite possible (though not the fastest way to get around the track).

To get the best lap times, it’s all about braking late and deep, avoiding that inside lockup, and fighting that extremely tempting urge to floor it and drift your way around the corner. Instead, keep it cool, feel where the maximum grip is, the rear should be kept just in a very shallow slide, and use the normal ‘slow in fast out’ technique common to most forms of motor racing.

The car has most of the common characteristics of street vehicles, some minor lift oversteer, and you can get power on oversteer with excessive throttle too, but in general the Roadster is a well balanced vehicle.

Tyres:
245/40 R18 Optimum temperature around 80 degrees.
295/35 R18

Brakes:
No ABS. They work well from low temperatures, but ideal after the first stop. Some fade sets in around 650°C. Corrected brake bias is about 62% forward, and there is no adjusting it.

Gears:
Keep in mind 5th gear is all but useless during competition in this car, designed to improve mileage during highway use. The other gears are also designed for specific speeds, more than to allow smooth shifting. There are noticable differences in redline in specific gears that will take some time to get used to.