Inc.com | The Best American Cars and Motorcycles You've Never Heard Of


The Best American Cars and Motorcycles You've Never Heard Of « Previous Slide \| Start Over \| Pause \| Next Slide »
The Panoz Esperante was born of an orphan chassis that Dan Panoz snagged from the bankrupt Thompson Motor Co. in 1988. The GTLM, with a hand-assembled 420-horsepower V-8 engine under the hood, is one of three street-legal Esperante models. (Panoz also builds racecars.) The GTLM makes the most of that power with a lightweight aluminum body. It rockets from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds, and hits a top speed of 180 miles per hour. Panoz's factory in Hoschton, Ga., cranks out some 300 hand-built cars per year.	ADVERTISEMENT

The Panoz Esperante was born of an orphan chassis that Dan Panoz snagged from the bankrupt Thompson Motor Co. in 1988. The GTLM, with a hand-assembled 420-horsepower V-8 engine under the hood, is one of three street-legal Esperante models. (Panoz also builds racecars.) The GTLM makes the most of that power with a lightweight aluminum body. It rockets from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 4.2 seconds, and hits a top speed of 180 miles per hour. Panoz's factory in Hoschton, Ga., cranks out some 300 hand-built cars per year.