The other Panthers
05/03/2020
Many people are probably familiar with the British car manufacturer Panther , after all, this small manufacturer built a whole series of retro sports cars, starting in 1972 with the Panther J72, which was based on the Jaguar SS 100.
Other models followed, including the spectacular Panther Six with four steered front wheels, which never made it past the prototype stage. The later Kallista was much more successful.
But even before that, in 1968 to be precise, Bertone presented its Bertone Panther super sports car study at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1968 , a speedster weighing just 650 kg with a hydraulically adjustable roof spoiler (pictured above).
The same design reappeared in 1973 when Franco Sbarro presented the Tiger at the 1973 Geneva Motor Show . The roof spoiler had disappeared, as had the elaborate body construction, but the lines were clearly reminiscent of the Bertone Panther. Sbarro wanted to market the two-seater as a road sports car, equipped with a large-volume V8 engine from Ford or Mercedes-Benz. This also came to nothing.
However, Bertone was not the first car manufacturer to use the name "Panther" either. As early as 1954, an innovative entrepreneur wanted to launch a small car with a Zagato body and an economical two-cylinder diesel engine.
However, this three-liter car also remained a dream and never made it onto the road in significant numbers. We recently published an extensive article on the Panther 400 D from 1954 .
