The Panhard company sold their first car in 1890, a half-dozen years before Henry Sr. sold his first Quadricycle in 1896. This 1950 Panhard Dyna X84 came sixty years after Panhard’s first attempt and it’s a peach. It’s found about a half-hour from Gatwick Airport in Horsham, West Sussex, UK so you can fly in and check it out. Horsham holds the UK record for the heaviest hailstone of all time, 140g (4.9 oz), about the size of a tennis ball! It fell in 1958 and it’s a good thing this aluminum-bodied car wasn’t in its path!

I think that this is a fantastic-looking car, I love the detailing on this Dyna X. This is an aluminum-bodied car so there is no rust on this one, at least on the top side. But, as you can see here, you’ll have some massaging to do with that RR aluminum wing. After WWII, the Panhard company took advantage of the shortage of steel and, oddly enough, the glut of aluminum, and they made this 1,350 pound beauty from 1947 to 1954,

Isn’t that a great profile? I love it. And, yes, those doors both hinge from the center post; cool. There’s a lot of room inside, too; at least there is when you’re taking publicity photos. The seller says that this car is “mostly untouched” and that it’s in oily rag condition; as in, not restored but maintained with an eye towards using it as it was meant to be used. It’s not a trailer queen as you can tell from the photos, but it’s in what I would call very nice condition, especially for a sixty-six year old car. They do mention that the roof has been repainted at some point in its lifetime.

The Dyna X has a 4-speed manual with the shifter being on the column. “Four on the tree” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “three on the tree” does. But, this transmission is one better (like Spinal Tap’s amps are one louder).

What an unusual front end treatment here. I would bet that a lot of people would guess the country of origin of this car as being France, and of course they would be right. The owner says that this car was bought new in Martinique and then spent the majority of its life back on the motherland (France) before being recently imported to the UK. There’s a bigger engine lurking under that bonnet than what came with this car originally. This is also a front-drive car which was somewhat unusual for the late-40s and early-50s, but not unheard of.

The engine here would have been, should have been a 610cc 2-cylinder “boxer” with about 28 hp. The 850cc unit in there now is from a later Dyna X and it should have about 40 hp, which doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s 30% increase in power. To me, original, or original-spec is always better, so it’s disappointing that a different engine is in this car. But, all is not lost, the original unit is included in the sale price! The top speed should be around 80 mph with the bigger engine in here.

I probably don’t have to mention that I’m a huge fan of two and three-cylinder cars. You can find this French beauty by checking out this eBay Classified Ad. It has an asking price of £6,250, or about $8,800 US dollars. This one isn’t an auction, it’s a listing, which is unlike what eBay typically does in the States. I like this car a lot. How about you, do you like French cars as much as I do or are you a British or American ride or nothing sort of person?