1998 Panoz AIV Roadster

The Panoz AIV Roadster is an all-american lightweight roadster with European roots. The Panoz family purchased the rights to a defunct sportscar manufacturer in the late 1980s, and after much retooling and essentially a start-from-scratch redesign, the Panoz Roadster was born. The first iteration was stainless steel and utilized a 5.0L Ford V8 and did not come with any top, radio, heater, or air conditioning. In 1996, the AIV, which stands for Aluminum Intensive Vehicle, was born. It used largely the same styling as the first-gen roadster, but the car was now 70% aluminum, weighing in at only 2500 pounds, and a new 4.6L 32-valve aluminum V8 from the Mustang Cobra was shoehorned in, bumping the power up to 305bhp. Additionally, they created a surprisingly easy-to-install top with side curtain windows, plus luxury amenities like a radio, heat, and air conditioning. They were hand assembled in Braselton, Georgia, and to this day remain as one of the most unique American cars ever produced. A total of 176 AIV Roadsters were sold to the public during the 3.5-year production run. Unlike most limited production hand-built sports cars, these are actually incredibly reliable, simple to maintain, and are very pleasant to drive. Parts are easy to source given that it is mostly Ford components. Many critics of the Plymouth Prowler say that this is what the Prowler should have been.

This particular example was originally sourced for the owner's personal collection, but due to lack of time to actually drive it, we are putting it up for sale. It is finished in rare and beautiful metallic green, which appears blue from some angles - it is a subtle color-shift metallic. The paint is all original to our knowledge except for the rear fenders which we had refinished to eliminate the rock chips. Instead of replacing the ugly black elephant-ear stone guards we had the rear fenders covered in clear film, after allowing the paint to cure for the requisite 30 days to fully harden.

The previous owner had the odometer fail at around 3250 miles, and for some reason replaced it with a unit that read 2455 miles, thereby branding the title as non-actual mileage. The reasoning escapes me, but we have the documentation of continual mileage, and the cumulative total mileage is less than 4000. 

We have full service records from the previous owner, and we also had it gone through once we bought it to ensure fluids were up to date, to fix a minor oil leak, and service the air conditioning. All functions work properly and the car is fully serviced and ready for the next owner to enjoy. The car comes with the factory soft top and leather bag, Panoz branded floor mats plus the base floor mats, one key, and the owner's manual booklet.