Panoz DeltaWing

[Rauq]

I was discussing kit cars with a friend recently and they made a comment about the Goblin's rear suspension. I replied that there are a few OEM cars that were designed generally by moving a front-engine vehicle's powertrain and suspension to the rear of a car (Fiero, an odd Fiat, and I want to say the MR2 maybe?). I then remembered that'd I'd snapped a few pictures back in 2016 of the rear end of a Panoz DeltaWing at Road Atlanta.

Panoz had on display a DeltaWing that they said could have street car development in its future and I was talking with one of the engineers. I noticed a lot of familiar powertrain components including the turbocharged engine and I asked an engineer who confirmed that it was an LDK setup out of a Regal. What's funny is that I remembered this because I was thinking about a vehicle I had seen with struts mounted for rear suspension, and it took me a little while to realize that they'd done something similar to the Goblin. I don't think they reused a factory cradle but as far as I could tell they'd mounted factory LDK control arms, tie rods, struts, and everything else to their own fancy frame. We also talked about how the factory strut mount bearing was a little less than ideal for a strut that doesn't rotate any more but it held up fine in their applications.

I do wish I'd gotten better pictures now that I've been spending more time thinking about relocated front-engined setups!

 

[George]

I installed spherical bearing in my upper mounts. Some where in my blog is should be a post.

Brad

 

[JBINTX]

that thing sure has a lot of angle through the short drive shaft. Can't be good for the longevity of that joint.

 

[George]

The axles are special from the driveshaft shop, larger joints. More angle compensation and will take 400hp.
not cheap but makes car be able to run low for performance. The thing I need to look at next is rotating the engine forward for better alignment, maybe over the winter.

Brad

 

[JBINTX]

One heck of a lot of beautiful aluminum machine work on it, too. Looks like $$$$$

 

[Rauq]

that thing sure has a lot of angle through the short drive shaft. Can't be good for the longevity of that joint.

I want to say there was a bit of (fiberglass?) body work off the car for display purposes so it likely rides a bit lower with some weight (also from the driver) but yeah that's a good bit of angle regardless of the strength of the joints.

One heck of a lot of beautiful aluminum machine work on it, too. Looks like $$$$$

As far as I could tell the knuckle and arms were factory cast pieces but yes the cradle and uprights sure do look expensive... as I recall it though this was generally a prototype or proof of concept for something they intended to produce in higher numbers. They'd thought/hoped for a while it would evolve into a sort of Prototype Challenge or LMP2 competitor. I remember seeing it on track a few seasons before and it had the pace of the Oreca and Dallara chassis but kept getting punted because it was less visible in other drivers' blind spots than full size cars. There was some trick suspension setup on the thing as well because they didn't have to account for half a car's weight over the front axle.