{"id":222212,"date":"2026-01-01T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T20:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222212\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T20:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T20:00:08","slug":"the-oddball-panther-solo-2-could-have-been-britains-959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222212\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oddball Panther Solo 2 Could Have Been Britain\u2019s 959"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was, in that Great British Tradition, a heroic failure, but the Panther Solo 2 had almost all the right ingredients to rival the best supercars of its day.<\/p>\n

When it debuted in 1989, Car magazine declared it, \u201cThe most important British sports car since the E-type Jaguar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind it was plucky Panther, a company previously known for making the very retro Kallista\u2014a sort of cut-price Morgan. Korean owner Young Chull Kim, who had rescued the company from bankruptcy, no longer wanted to look backwards. A new Panther would have its eyes firmly on the future.<\/p>\n

\"PantherPanther<\/p>\n

The Solo project was originally conceived as an affordable, lightweight, mid-engined, rear-drive sports car. A concept featured Fiero-like bodywork by Ken Greenley, tutor of automotive design at London\u2019s Royal College of Art, while the car\u2019s chassis was the job of Len Bailey, who had previously worked on the likes of the Ford GT40 and GT70 with Alan Mann Racing.<\/a> The car made its debut at the British Motor Show in 1984, and all was going well until Kim had the opportunity to drive Toyota\u2019s then-new MR2 and realized that the Solo simply couldn\u2019t compete with the Japanese giant\u2019s sportster.<\/p>\n

It was back to the drawing board, but now with an even bigger ambition. If Panther couldn\u2019t rival Toyota, maybe it could take on the likes of Porsche instead.<\/p>\n

The same team reassembled, and over the next three years, the Solo 2 took form. Greenley was given carte blanche with the design, which grew in length to accommodate a pair of rear seats, while soft lines took the place of the original Solo\u2019s creases. Pop-up headlamps were replaced with lenses behind rotating covers to maintain daytime wind-cheating capability. The car\u2019s aerodynamics were incredibly advanced, honed with the help of a Formula 1 team. According to the Solo\u2019s launch kit, \u201cThe shape Ken arrived at, with the help of March Engineering, generated positive downforce at both ends of the car, and wind tunnel tests indicated a 33 lb front downforce and 82 lb rear downforce at 150 mph.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Panther-Solo-2Panther<\/p>\n

Even more innovative was the Solo 2\u2019s structure. A central steel spaceframe supported the bodywork made from aerospace-style aluminum honeycomb sandwiched between epoxy-bonded fiberglass. In the front, a crushable structure, similar to that used in the day\u2019s F1 cars, would enable the Solo 2 to meet worldwide crash regulations, including those in the U.S. Ambitious, indeed.<\/p>\n

Suspension was all independent, and, unusually, no anti-roll bars were fitted. Panther\u2019s reasoning was that the combination of the cars\u2019 low center of gravity and its relatively high roll stiffness rendered them unnecessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember best a day at Castle Combe with a load of other good and fast cars from some pretty established and illustrious companies,\u201d recalled Andrew Frankel, writing for Goodwood<\/a>. \u201cAnd as a thing to drive, the Solo beat them hollow. It rode Combe\u2019s notorious bumps with imperious aplomb and its steering was a good as any car\u2019s I\u2019d driven.\u201d<\/p>\n

To endeavor to give the Solo 2 the speed to suit its sublime handling, Panther turned to the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth and its two-liter 200-hp turbocharged four-cylinder engine. For traction, Panther opted for all-wheel drive (three years before Ford offered a similar setup in the Cossie), which required an in-house central transfer system and Ferguson center differential. The torque split was rear-biased with just 34% going to the front wheels, and a Borg-Warner T5 manual transmission took care of gear selection.<\/p>\n

That all sounds great on paper\u2014something similar certainly worked for the Group B Ford RS200<\/a>\u2014but the Solo 2 was supposed to be more sophisticated than the rally rocket. The engine \u201csounded like a bag of bolts being poured into a blender,\u201d noted Frankel. \u201cDid I mention that with so little power it was rather slow too? In fact, all it really had going for it was its chassis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The engine \u201clacks pedigree and power,\u201d agreed Car\u2019s Gavin Green. The Solo 2, he wrote, was \u201cbrilliant in patches, mediocre in other areas, it is a car that cries out for more development. It needs another year, probably two before it can be a serious challenger. The potential, the enthusiasm is there. But the one thing the Solo has run out of is time. We\u2019ve waited long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having followed the Panther\u2019s progress in the pages of Britain\u2019s motoring magazines from the start, I vividly remember reading this review, which compared the Solo 2 to the Lotus Esprit SE, and I too was disappointed that this British underdog would never take the fight to more established supercars at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Panther did receive an initial 125 orders for the Solo 2, but customers, tired of waiting during an increasingly protracted development process, and disheartened by the motoring media\u2019s U-turn on its enthusiasm, soon began to cancel. In the end, it\u2019s believed that only 13 cars were actually delivered.<\/p>\n

Back in 1990, Autocar summed the Solo up best. \u201c[Panther] must be one of the smallest manufacturers in the world yet it has produced a car with more flair, innovation and design integrity than most massive corporations ever show. It\u2019s rivals, all technically better cars, will be around long after the Solo has died. And that\u2019s the shame because, of them all, it is the Solo that shows the way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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