America has always made its own breed of performance car, usually leaving the Europeans to their own game. Muscle cars, after all, are perfectly suited to the long straight highways of the USA, with plenty of big displacement grunt fueled by relatively cheap gas. There have been a few more exotic low-volume sports cars over the years coming out of the US, but the real icons tend to be the working-class heroes that come out of Detroit and Dearborn. But there is one all-American sports car that dared to be more like the rare, handcrafted sports cars that come from tiny coachbuilders in Northern Italy. It even tackled (and won) at the epic Le Mans 24 Hours race. It's just a shame this carmaker from the Deep South is so often forgotten... American Sports Cars Are Fast, Loud And Everywhere Mecum Most American sports cars are designed to be on every street corner. Just look at the Ford Mustang. The Blue Oval hoped that it would shift around 100,000 units of its new pony car in its first year. Wrong. It racked up 417,000 sales in its first 12 months, and the one millionth Mustang had been shifted by 1966. With a marketing campaign that included getting the car on the front cover of Time Magazine and Newsweek simultaneously, the Ford Mustang was a sports car that laughs in the face of rarity. Other US cars enjoy the same ubiquity, with the Corvette currently just a few thousand off the 2 million mark. American Does Do Exotics Bring a Trailer But while the Mustang and Corvette are the equivalent of burger and fries in the world of American sports cars, there are a few carmakers that are more exotic. Reeves Callaway began modifying a BMW 3 Series, moving on to constructing a twin turbo system for an Alfa Romeo GTV6. The Callaway Corvette Sledgehammer that he created from a C4 Corvette was an ultra-rare supercar that was capable of a verified top speed of 254.76 mph.Then there is the Hennessey Venom F5, which is a Texas-built, carbon-fiber hypercar designed for speeds over 310 mph, thanks to a twin-turbo V8 "Fury" engine. But the thing with these examples is that, while they are boutique manufacturers, a lot of people would still have heard of them. But there is one American exotic that time has completely forgotten, with a back catalog of genuinely interesting and diverse cars. They are even still making cars today. Who would have thought? The Panoz Esperante Is A Sports Car From The Deep South Panoz? That might ring a bell...and it should. This small car company out in Hoschton, Georgia, that always dreams big. Founded in 1989, the company bought the rights to one of the chassis Thompson Motor Company (TMC) was using. The chassis was designed by world renowned designer Frank Costin, the man who also built chassis for Maserati, Lotus and Lister. It became the basis of the 1992 Panoz Roadster. The car, which looked like a cross between a Cobra and a Caterham, went into production in 1995. The next road car model was the Esperante which arrived in 1999. The Esperante was a more grown-up sports car, using the Ford SVT Mustang Cobra for many of its oily bits. The Esperante Is Designed To Take On The Porsche 911 Bring A Trailer The 2750 lb Esperante is a low-slung aluminum roadster which looks European, and if you squint, a little like the 996-era Porsche 911. Unlike many other low production cars, the Esperante avoids falling into the trap of being overdesigned, instead having a restrained overall look that is fairly well-balanced. The weight balance is also almost perfect, 49.5/50.5 front to rear. The pushrod-actuated coil-over-shock units and anti-roll bars, and independent rear suspension, are designed to make the Esperante sporty but forgiving, showing that Panoz really did want to position the car as a rival to the cars coming out of Stuttgart around the turn of the century. The Esperante Was As Quick As The Best Sports Cars Of The Day Bring A Trailer The handbuilt Ford SVT 4.6-liter V8 is good for between 320 and 350 horsepower. It is coupled with a five-speed manual transmission. A 320-horsepower and317 lb-ft of torque Esperante was good for hitting 60 mph in 5.1 seconds, with the quarter mile completed in a handy 13.1 seconds. Both figures are in the ballpark of the Porsche 911 Carrera of the day. Then there was the Panoz Esperante GTLM, fitted with a supercharged quad-cam 4.6-liter SVT V8, pushing out 420 horsepower. This $120,000 Esperante is good for 60 mph in 4.2 seconds and a top speed of 180 mph. The Esperante Is An Exotic That Uses Familiar Parts Bring A TrailerWhile Panoz (perhaps wisely) relied on Ford for the engine, the company spent money elsewhere on pioneering tech. Panoz claimed an industry first with its replaceable side-impact crush zone, which clicked onto the chassis side rails. There was also an adhesive that bonds the aluminum frame-rail extrusions at room temperature, meaning there was no need for an oven.Panoz also sidestepped expensive carbon or plastic composites for a lightweight aerospace-grade SPF aluminum body work over a modular aluminum chassis. The company designed aluminum extrusions front and rear to hold the engine. Interestingly, when a well-known car mag tested the car against a Jaguar XKR and Porsche 911, the Panoz was rated as being good enough to fit between the two. The Porsche won, by the way. The Esperante Is Rare — But You Can Still Buy One Bring A TrailerWhat is truly amazing is that Panoz will still make you an Esperante, in various versions such as the Syper GT. This car comes fitted with a 560-horsepower Élan V8 engine, with updated looks that modernize the styling. Then there are the Spyder and the Convertible. Panoz also sells the Avezzano which features adjustable suspension and a carbon fiber and patented Panoz aluminum chassis architecture. The Esperante is Panoz's best-selling car to date. It is estimated that 234 examples were produced of the first generation between 2001 and 2007, says Hagerty. Panoz Went Racing To Le Mans Bring A TrailerPanoz has also had a lot of success racing. The company created the first modern hybrid race car, the 1998 Panoz Esperante Q9 GTR-1 Hybrid, which won its class at the inaugural Petit Le Mans in 1998. Then there was the front-mid-engined Esperante GTLM which gave Panoz a class win at Le Mans in 2006. Panoz even built a GTR-1 road car for 24 Hours of Le Mans homologation requirements. While the original, which featured a light and strong carbon fiber monocoque composite chassis, is a one-off, Panoz will build you a near-exact replica if you have deep enough pockets. Buying A Panoz Today Bring A TrailerWhile some low-volume sports cars probably deserve to fade into obscurity, not Panoz. This is a company with a rich history of racing, innovation, and taking on the giants, and not fairing too badly. There are a number of Esperantes that have sold on Bringatrailer, and prices are really affordable for such a rare model. This 40,000-mile example sold for just $21,250 in 2025. There are also tuned versions, and even race cars, but prices never really seem to go over around $30,000. In truth, you could probably get a Corvette for less, that may well be faster, but that's missing the point. The Panoz Esperante is the forgotten American TVR or Ginetta, a plucky underdog that deserves its place in history.Sources: Hagerty.com