A 650-horsepower coachbuilt Lamborghini with pop-up headlights? Where do we sign?
Ares Design is getting serious about the Panther. It’s been testing pre-production prototypes in Italy, releasing these teaser shots of the forthcoming coachbuilt supercar, still wrapped in camo, to keep our appetites whet. And together with them, it’s released a few more salient details.
For those unfamiliar, Ares Design is the new company headed up by Dany Bahar – the former head of Lotus and senior executive at Ferrari and Red Bull. He set up shop in Modena, right in the heart of Italy’s “supercar valley,” with the aim of coachbuilding high-end rides – chief among them being the Panther.
Ares released earlier this year the first renderings and details of the project, which seeks to reinterpret the classic De Tomaso Pantera on the basis of a Lamborghini Huracan. But has now filled in a number of the blanks.
For starters, it’s bored out the Huracan’s 5.2-liter V10 to 5.6 liters, and extracted 650 horsepower and 413 lb-ft of torque from it. That’s more than even Lamborghini has coaxed from the engine in the top Performante model. It remains mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (and likely all-wheel drive as well). The underpinnings are cloaked in unique carbon-fiber bodywork, complete with old-school pop-up headlights.
Ares aims to start delivering the first of 21 customer examples in October, each with a price tag starting at €515,000 (or about $600k at current rates).
“Within just six months of announcing the Panther project we have our test car on the road and are ready to present to the world our expression of a car that I dreamt of as a kid,” said Bahar. “The ARES Panther will be the perfect blend of old school charm and charisma, underpinned with an iconic modern chassis, and clothed in full carbon.” We’re looking forward to seeing how it shapes up.
