Robert Jankel was a very big name in the 1980s when it came to the car customization bussiness. After his company Panther Westwinds, which was a company that mainly built sports cars, went bankrupt in 1979 (and was bought by a Korean named Young Kim), Jankel went on with the "Jankel Group", a company he had founded in the 1950s. Under the brand name / sister company "Le Marquis" Jankel built all sorts of wild conversions of Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar/Daimler, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce/Bentley motor cars. From 1983 to 1989 Jankel was officialy liscensed by Rolls-Royce to produce stretched versions of their cars, which could be ordered straight from the Rolls-Royce dealership.
Jankel also built two special sportscars: the Jankel Gold Label which was a completely new car with a Bentley Turbo engine and the Jankel Tempest which was a highly modified, high-powered conversion of the Corvette.
Unfortunately Robert Jankel passed away in 2005 aged 67.
The Jankel Antibes: a Rolls-Royce Silver Spur stretched by Robert Jankel Design .
Text: copyright Bram Corts 2013