Now that Pebble Beach is here, it’s time to take a look back at one of the stars of this year’s Villa d’Este, the Panther 6. It’s real alright.
It was made by the British, who jammed a 8.2 liter Cadillac V8 in their six-wheeled convertible, blown by a pair of turbos. That’s right. The 2016 Cadillac CTS-V might be a glorious 640 horsepower exercise in overkill, but it doesn’t have much on the Panther in terms of pure insanity.
The Panther 6 was designed by specialty automobile expert Robert Jankel, who must have been inspired by both the famous Tyrrell P34 F1 car and something very different. LSD, perhaps?
Either way, Panther Westwinds Limited only built two of these luxury barges in 1977, and while the black car ended up in the Middle-East somewhere, the white car stayed in the UK and was brought to the 2015 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este by Albert Fellner, who must be a hero in his spare time.
Six-hundred horsepower and a claimed top speed of 200 mph. I wonder why that never got confirmed...
Photo credit: Daniel Stocker
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