Panther Westwinds P6: forgotten concept (1977)

Posted on 12-01-2014 at 17:12 by sir_smokalot – 18 Comments”

More wheels = more fun? According to Mercedes, but what was that in the Seventies, when this P6 saw the light?

The public of the 1977 London Motorfair got a lot of cars thrown at you, but the most notable was undoubtedly this P6 of Panther Westwinds, an opulent convertible with six wheels (here is a list of other prominent zeswielers) and an 8.2-litre Cadillac V8, with 2 turbochargers.

The colossus will be almost 5 metres long and more than 2 meters wide, was shot to the brain of Robert Jankel, Panther Westwinds in 1972 founded. It gave the world creations as the Ferrari 365 GTB, but after eight years, in 1980, the company was heading under, and shifted Jankel focus to armoured and extended luxury cars, such as this Bentley that had previously passed by.

A concept, we should strictly according to the rules actually don’t mention, because it was just a production car, but a very expensive one. Ultimately only the production, after 2 copies, one white and one black. The black (rechtsgestuurd) was the show car, the white (linksgestuurd) de facto, the first and only production model. Both models are still in existence, one seems in the Middle East.

As a source of inspiration served the also zeswielige Tyrell P34 racer, whose layout also was the model for the later Covini C6W. Jankel saw the racer a year earlier during the British Grand Prix and decided that he, too, something had to go. The result was a car in which you drowned in brown leather, with phones in the armrests, a TV in the dashboard, electrically operated windows, and a hydraulically operated hood.

The model would be the 200 mph limit should exceed, and Jankel claimed a power output of more than 600 hp. Standard delivered the Caddy-block from the Eldorado, 365 hp. No one has the car ever been on the roller (which is also a bit tricky with a double front axle), but the actual power will be somewhere between both values.

Inquiry post by Robert Jankel is going to be difficult, the man died in the previous decade already. For more background on the P6, we refer to this article from the British Octane. Rare video footage, including explanation of Jankel to find itself on autojunk.

Gallery: Panther P6 1977

”

“