Don Panoz is not pleased with Nissan’s narrow-nosed ZEOD RC. We’ve known this since at least December, when we found out that Panoz was suing the Japanese automaker over pretty blatant design similarities between Panoz’s DeltaWing project and Nissan’s new race car.
Given that both were designed by Ben Bowlby, who’d initially shopped the narrow-track racer to IndyCar before Panoz took it sports-car racing with Nissan power, the similarities are not exactly a surprise. What is a surprise is that Panoz took out an old-school “open letter” ad in Monday’s Automotive News, calling Renault-Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn on the carpet for unlawful use of intellectual property:
The ad reads in part, “In 2006, you famously coined the term ‘Frugal Engineering’ to describe the ability to innovate cost-effectively and quickly under severe resource constraints. We certainly don’t believe that you intended for your company to go so far as using the design ideas of others without proper compensation or recognition. Yet that is exactly what has happened. In looking at the DeltaWing race car alongside the ZEOD, who would not believe that the ZEOD race car’s design is obviously based upon our technology?”
Sick burn, Don. Carlos? A response?
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Obviously, Nissan and Bowlby think they’re in the clear, or that they can at least outmuscle Panoz in court, and, furthermore, that doing so is more cost-effective and beneficial than paying him off. Panoz, though, is a tenacious character, and we get the sense that the situation’s only going to heat up from here. In the interim, we’re giddily anticipating the moment that Ace and Gary enter the fray.
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