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Greg Wells
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Holy Hot Rods, Batman!
SCE Goes Nose to Nose With the Panoz

It’s been said that race cars have been getting uglier ever since race car designers discovered aerodynamics. The Porsche 917-10K, said one pundit, worked so well because Porsche had the guts to build the truly ugly car their wind tunnel data demanded.

The current crop of Formula One cars, with their high, pointy noses and assorted aerodynamic devices, can hardly be called examples of classic automotive beauty. Of course, ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So is over-the-top weirdness.

Which brings us to the Panoz GTR.

Click image for a full screen view

This, friends, is the car Batman and Robin traded in on something less bizarre. It’s the bad guy’s car in one of the Speed Racer cartoons, or maybe Dick Dastardly’s latest ride, designed by a Hanna-Barbera cartoonist. It’s a Fifties artist’s idea of what race cars will look like in the year 2050. It’s a 1939 Mercedes-Benz coupe customized by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. From the front it looks like it was built in Rus-sia by the MiG works from surplus jet fighter parts.

Okay, okay, stop throwing things. We have to admit the car’s shape has its admirers along with its detractors. It does have a certain in-your-face quality that’s impossible to ignore. And regardless of whether you think it’s cutting-edge cool or just plain silly, you have to agree that the Panoz GTR has developed into a winner. It’s also a race car familiar on both sides of the Atlantic. So, it’s not surprising that Fly Car Model of Spain has chosen the Panoz as its latest slot car.

Fly has established itself as the performance leader in Euroscale, or European-style plastic chassis scale model slot cars. The company has a reputation for innovative design combined with world-class finish and detail. It’s also known for embarrassing lapses in execution. The Panoz fits the pattern perfectly.

The Fly mold makers have accurately captured every line and shape of the complex Panoz body. The car abounds in detail, with sharp, opaque tampo stamped markings, even down to lettering too small to read with the naked eye but perfectly legible when magnified. All the body openings on the 1/1 scale Panoz.........

Read the conclusion in the April/May edition of Slot Car Enthusiast