This car screams America! While the rest of the world was working with high revving small capacity engines or massive turbo chargers placed in the middle of the car, Dr Don Panoz had other ideas. When it came to designing his GT1 competitor he was adamant that it must resemble his Esperante production car, in more ways than one. Under the hood would feature a NASCAR derived 6.0l V8 Roush engine, quite the world away from BMW V12s or Mercedes and Toyota turbo V8s. Where that engine could be found was also unconventional. It was front engined. For reference, the last time a front engined car had won Le Mans outright was the Ferrari 330 TRI/LM in 1962, and the Panoz would start racing in 1997. While this was unusual for the top class, as GT1 cars were technically supposed to be based on road cars, having the engine in the front was not too unusual. However, for 1999 they would turn up the crazy. Moving with the times, Panoz decided to move into the new LMP class. To do so they chopped the roof of the GTR-1 to produce a front engine prototype. A front engine, NASCAR powered prototype. This car was drastically different to anything else on the grid. Unfortunately, as bold as the design was, neither version of the car would see a huge amount of success (although they would win the inaugural ALMS Teams Championship). The GTR-1/LMP1 Roadster-S was a middle finger to the establishment, an “I’m doing things my way”. To have any level of success in a car which it could be argued was over 30 years out of date must be commended. But while they represented the best of the past, they also showed us the future of Le Mans prototypes. In 1998 Panoz partnered with Zytek (now Gibson) to produce “Sparky”, a hybrid powered GTR-1. Unfortunately, the car was overweight and suffered from a lack of testing. While it was withdrawn from Le Mans it did compete in the 1998 Petit Le Mans where it finished 12th overall. The Panoz was using technology that has won every Le Mans since 2012, fourteen years earlier. The Panoz Esperante GTR-1/LMP1 Roadster-S, the only car to be both out-dated and ahead of the curve.