Conventional wisdom pegs Mercedes or Peugeot as the first automaker, and yes, both made early versions of what can be considered a car. But Panhard et Levassor is often considered the first production automobile company in the world, commencing operations in 1887. Its early cars used engines licensed from Daimler, and set a standard called Système Panhard – a front engine, rear-wheel drive layout – used extensively ever since. Beyond its groundbreaking engineering, Panhard was French, so its viewpoint on design features and problem-solving was unique. The Dyna Z, for instance, is propelled by an air-cooled two-cylinder, in a front-engine, front-wheel drive layout, sometimes provided with a Ferodo electromagnetic clutch and bodied mostly in aluminum with a bakelite dash “binnacle” containing gauges and switches. Here on eBay, we have one of these odd creatures, a Panhard Dyna Z berline luxe with an asking price of $16,500 with a “best offer” option. Note that I have not included the model year here. That’s because the seller’s ad indicates the car is a ’54, but we obtained a photo of the registration, which shows it to be a ’56. The VIN plate decodes as type “Z1”, model “BL” (berline luxe), consistent with 1954 through 1956 production. Merci to Larry D. for this very unusual tip!
Now there is the matter of the motor. The car sports a “Tigre” badge on the back referring to the 50 bhp version of the Dyna’s mostly aluminum, 851 cc, air-cooled, two-cylinder engine. But Tigre motors were not used in production until 1959 according to one source, or 1957 according to another. The seller indicated in a conversation with us that the prior owner of this car was the president of a Panhard club, and he had access to plenty of upscale parts including a later engine. Apparently, he swapped the motor and affixed the badge to the trunk. Early engines generate just 45 bhp and are renowned for their decibel level. The column-shift four-speed manual can row this little car up to about 80 mph. The seller reports that the car runs but needs brake work.
The interior is in nice condition. The binnacle shows cracking in its ivory plastic as does the steering wheel. The remainder of the dash is faintly French Art Deco and very tidy. Note the doors hinged on the rear pillar. The owner’s manual accompanies the car.
This car’s body is said to be all aluminum, but that’s another point to clarify with the seller: after 1955, Panhard abandoned alloy construction as it nearly bankrupted the company. (Tattered finances effectively drove Panhard into the arms of Citroen.) Later cars retained alloy doors, trunk lid, and hood, but eventually, the cars were all steel and much heavier. Despite conflicting information surrounding this example, it has the quirkiness and flair that attracts certain collectors. Sourcing parts might be challenging, but at least the price is reasonable relative to many other makes. What do you think?
You, my dear, have a welcome flair for the unusual, and a refreshing change from Mustangs, Challengers and such.
Again with the fish, what was it about the French and their infatuation with fish? Most see “Dyna” and think Harley, I think it would weird to be in a country that styles their cars this way. The biggest difference I see in the USA and everywhere else, it seems, everybody BUT US, adopted some sort of streamlining. We had big boxes, and only until gas got even HALF as close as what Europeans were paying, did we even think about streamlining. The Taurus/Sable and the Kenworth T600 were the 1st times we saw anything like this. THIS was the future?
It’s a neat find, and as usual, horribly inept for todays travel here. I looked up the performance, if you could call it that, now, obviously, one doesn’t buy this for speed, but for comparison sake,, it does the 1/4 in 24.3 seconds @55 mph,( stiff tail wind that day) but it’s 0 to times are almost comical. It had an alleged top speed of 74 mph, again, I doubt, on paper maybe, and a 0-60 time of 30.7 seconds, but it’s 0-70 time that’s notable,,,, is another 41 seconds at 71.7 seconds. I think I can peddle my bicycle faster. BUT, for what it was, I bet it is a really nice car, and will get attention anywhere you go, like on that 2 lane, you’ll be leading the pack. Maybe as the people finally get around you, that they see what’s holding up the show, and may smile. Cool find and only here.
Zero-to- times don’t matter with this kind of car. You can keep your pied to the plancher and it’ll buzz along quite happily all day at 70-odds. 80-odds if you tweak them a bit. More if you tweak them more….
Many small-engined French cars entered Le Mans; there used to be a class called “Index of Performance” that took into account both speed and fuel economy. Panhard, Bonnet – and Lotus – all entered this class.
And, as if you needed an excuse to visit France, you could go to Retromobile to look for parts. And ogle automotive art…
The Airflow and the bathtub Nash cars were aerodynamically styled , they just popular with the buying public. Other than the French , most European cars of the 60s and 70s were boxy as well – Fiats , British Leyland , VW , Mercedes, BMW . In the 50s a lot of European cars looked like small versions of 1930s American cars
Weren’t popular that should say
Look at the “face” of most any Toyota product from the last four years, and realize angry, aggressive or sneering fish were the model they tried to mimic.
The Panhard was called a “6 seater”, think only in Europe do people find it acceptable or OK to sit so close.
What a cool car. I have only seen one in person and that was in a abandoned junk yard we went to see because the hoarder bought all these quirky micro cars in the 70’s. One thing for sure with the French is that their cars didn’t follow tradition. Great cars and coffee vehicle. Don’t buy this car if you are an introvert.
You should really look up the Wiki description of this engineering marvel/oddity. Roller main & rod bearings just the least of it. Always thought it’d be a worthy challenge to own one and “blueprint it”
It looks like bottom-feeder catfish with a 1950 Nash rear end.
I had a friend on the late 80’s in the San Francisco bay area who had several Panhards. One was supposedly a factory racing fastback version. Lost track of him and his cars.
The fastback version was probably a Deutsch Bonnet (aka:D-B) that was built as a competition model employing the Panhard engine. I watched D-B coupes race at SCCA venues in the early 1960’s. The little Panhard air cooled flat twin was raucous but, capable of powering the lightweight D-B to class wins at Sebring, LeMans, and the Mille Miglia.
Sounds like Nick from All-Auto Dismemberers
Yes definitely French off the spectrum design. Lots of interesting engineering. I saw a small handful of Panhards when in France. I do remember they were noisier than 2cv.
Was that junkyard in Maine?
My first glance at the top picture I thought it was an early Packard… lol…. which goes with the old saying “don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see”…..
I’ve had several rides in one of these…..once 4 up-all adults- and it had amazing performance give its engine size and age. Built when expensive fuel in France was still of poor quality and the roads generally not very good either this falls into slightly faster class of 2CV and early Renault 4l …..neither fast but very suited to French roads. The engine etc is a work of art and the drag numbers amazingly low for the time. Rumor has it Citroen bought Panhard to eliminate competition to the DS
This Panhard represents a company that was truly the first PRODUCTION car co., as their first line of cars was produced from 1890 thru 1891, yielding about 26 cars, and simultaneously provided a number of engines that were sold to Peugeot – another significant French car co.
A recent and very interesting book details how the original company, Panhard-Lavassor, was a large co. making machine tools to sell to furniture mfrs – sanders, planers, saws, routers, et al, and thus they were major highly skilled business. In 1875, PL bought a license from Daimler to build stationary engines to power their machine tools and sell to other mfrs. The book also details how a French lady invented the bandsaw – a very important milestone industrially – as PL took her patent and somehow learned how to make blades for these productive machines, and sold bandsaws at all the industrial expositions held yearly.
With all this manufacturing eqiupment knowledge, their engineers put together a downsized engine, designed their own “cart”, and combined the two to create a sustainable road machine, and they stayed in continuous business until 1967, when Citroen, who had bought into PL sometime earlier, decided for whatever reasons, to end Panhard car production. And since Citroen only brought their Panhard cars to the US for a couple years, very few people know anything about them.
This Z1 is very likely a ’54, as only during the first year or two of production of this 4 door “jellybean” design (my moniker) with its aerodynamic profile and all-aluminum “body in white” as Detroit would call the shell and all exterior panels, were quickly bankrupting the co. The alumiinum proved to cost the co. triple what steel did at that time, so quickly the unibody was switched to steel, and shortly thereafter all the closure panels were switched to steel. However, the original all-aluminum bodies weighed only 220 lbs, which greatly helped the fuel economy and top speed.
To me, the most incredible bit of “provenance” of these cars is this fact: When these first flat twin engines of 750 ccs. were put into production in 1947, they were designed to rev to 7000 rpm, and they could do that due to the all-rollerbearing mounted crankshaft. But to achieve that speed, the engines employed roller lifters, and torsionbar-sprung valves. Coil valvesprings could not survive that high rev rate, but torsionbars could, and reduced the reciprocating masses in the engine, enabling the high rpm. The astonishing provenance comes in due to the fact that the conrod bearing employs a design invented by Leonardo – documented in his archives in his last home on the grounds of the Chateau Amboise in the Loire valley of France – around 1480!! Go there and see what I saw in 2005 – after attending the 50th anniv. celebration of the intro of the Citroen DS19 in 1955.
I was astonished! Why? the conrod bearing uses two different diameters – smaller ones separating the larger loadbearing ones for pure rolling friction – no sliding of roller against roller – the small ones counter-rotate to keep the larger ones from rubbing on each other. Panhard picked up Leonardo’s idea and proved it works. If that isn’t supreme “provenance”, I don’t know what is.
Plus – the engine cooling fins and head are one-piece aluminum, like aircraft engines – no separate head and gasket – meaning no headgasket failures.
Further, the valves are hydraulically adjusted, but this ingenious company reduced reciprocating mass further to achieve the 7000 rpm by NOT putting the hydraulic adjustment in the lifters, but instead float the rocker arm on an oil-pressurized hemispherical ball stud – how’s that for clever? Just another method to reduce reciprocating mass.
Lastly, the cars built since ’54 could easily do 80 mph, were miserly with gas, and could seat 5 people comfortably. My ’59 Dyna Z16, bought from Chrysler where it was part of a study toward building a lowcost entry-level car for China in late ’90’s, runs nicely at 85 and tops out at 90, on its 40 hp 850 cc engine. Bob Lutz personally brought this one into their study program. See the book “the China Car”, written by Francois Castaing – then chf engr of Chrysler – it’s an interesting tale of auto biz experiments and politics. It’s available on the overbearing female gladiator site, among others. The engineering in these cars is VERY different, interesting, and worth learning about. And we do have a national/worldwide club.
Great info, thank you!
What is ” the overbearing female gladiator site,” ? Never heard of it and have no clue of the meaning. That’s much too obscure of a reference for my simple brain.
Apologies Paolo – just an expression of my disdain for Amazon, which aspires to own the World.
Ken, thanks so much for the great write-up on the Panhard and all its interesting engineering innovations. I owned a Deutsch Bonnet for a few years and it used the Panhard engine. The car was fun to drive and always got lots of attention, wish I still had it. Best to you, Dave Cherrick
Great info article! No one mentioned the still widely used « Panhard rod » as a suspension component? Panhard also made a couple sport coupés, the CT24 and CD…..perfect lines and incredible performance for the times.
Thanks for adding that Dlegeai – sad that none of the hotrodders with Panhard rods stabilizing their rear axles know who invented it, let alone anything about the cars themselves. Jay has near a full collection of the Panhard models, but not a DB, altho he does own a very rare Panhard Dynamique – the most art deco car I’ve ever seen, with 3 front windowpanes & flared fenders that look bizarre and flashy. The last model Panhard built, the 24 CT/BT coupes, look sort of like the last model Corvair, but introduced quad headlites under glass, which parent co. Citroen adopted for their ’68 DS21 cars. The DBs were the offspring of Charles Deutsch and Rene’ Bonnet, two fellas who together built the HBr5 fastback racing coupes which did very well in their class at Lemans. I have a 65 DB Lemans roadster, same powertrain as the HBr5, but different chassis. A US racer who built his own SCCA rear-engined racer, Andre Garnier, also ran a DB Lemans at Sebring and other tracks, and often did quite well with those tiny twobangers. In fact, one fellow in Chico Ca., Tony Rodroguez. campaigned his Devin-Panhard at Sonoma, Leguna Seca and other tracks, and always had a glorious photo of him in his car ahead of a 12 cylinder Maserati on his store wall – seems that Maser could never pass him – catch him in the straights, but Tony would run away in the corners.
Another fellow, Don Racine, near Nevada City Ca, ran away from most competitors in his oneoff Aardvark open wheel Panhard-powered racer. Don told me after one race he was persuading that small twin to pump out 90 hp!
So much power that often the engnes would grenade on him if he missed a shift!
I have a steel-bodied car, pleased to own all of the development and ideas that went into these cars, but was SO disappointed it doesn’t incorperate a “Panhard bar”.
If you owned a Renault Dophine in those days all you really wanted was a Panhard!!
I recall seeing a few of these around ‘back then’ when all sorts of ‘odd’ European cars appeared–Wartburg, DKW, Daimler SP-250, Borgward, Simca, et.al. Until recently, there was a local guy who collected oddities, and you could drive by his place and see Citroens all around. Probably had one of these in the mix as well. He either moved or ? as they’re no longer in the same spot.
Even more technically impressive is the Panhard 24 that came later, 1964-67 their final model before being swallowed by Citroën.
The Panhard 24BT had the same 850 cc. engine, but tweaked to 60 hp out of the same two cylinders. All the Panhard engines are pure hemis – perfectly spherical combustion chambers. And being a lowslung coupe, its aerodynamics were probably even better than their jellybean sedans. For service, the 24 hood could be flipped up vertically, then lifted right off, no fasteners being involved. And beyond that, by undoing about 4 bolts, the entire front end – both fenders and the connecting front crossbar, could be lived vertically for full access to the front end. Not many mechanics in France had lifts or pits for access to the vehicles of that time, so everything could be done from the top.
My dad had a 54 alum when I was a kid as a regular driver in west Palm Beach FL in the 60s. My older sister learned to drive and shift in it before he got her a 53 Studebaker. He ended up getting 2 more steel pans he found in guys back yard junk car collection. Had all 3 for years. Believe he sold all to one collector. Great memories!
Howard, did your father’s all aluminum Dyna have an engine shrouded in alloy housing like this one? Reason I ask is – from my experience, the all alloy cars had a two bladed fan with only a partially enclosing top & bottom pair of steel air guides around the engine. This car, if a true all alloy unibody and closure panels, should have the uncovered two blade fan, so this engine has been upgraded to a later yr mill. Also, the early cars thru about ’57-58, had two major differences from later cars: The ’54 cars had a brake drum made up of a cast drum, with stamped steel outer cover/shell with the wheel studs attached to it, so was a composite drum, and mounted 400 mm rims, not the later 15 inchers which were used on the majority of Dynas and PLs plus 24s up thru about ’66 (when the 24s switched to a 3 bolt rim and disc brakes all around). All PLs and most 24s had alum drums with cast-in iron liner, and wheel studs mounted to the aluminum exterior, not to mention the 15 inch rims. Other than that, all cars used the same upper & lower transverse leafspring suspension and kingpin system.with a very peculiar feature: In a hard corner, so that the inboard front wheel maintains road contact in severe lean conditions, the kingpin can slide down about 1/2 inch at the top pivot joint – fortunately without disconnecting!! An internal snapring prevents the joint from coming apart, and it must have worked, as I’ve never heard of incidents where the upper joint came loose! This increase in wheel “reach” during cornering has to be unique in the auto industry – I’ve never heard nor come across anything as peculiar as this novel feature on any car – where the inner wheel “reaches” for the pavement with a bit more than normal vertical movement.
With the 145-400 mm rims requiring oddball tires, the early cars provide a bit more challenge, plus the early all steel/iron drums used wider shoeson front than the rear drums, so two different shoe sets were required. And somewhere between ’54 and later cars, the shocks went from lever ons to telescopic all around. And when the body style was changed from the Dyna jellybean to the PL17 around 1960, the narrow bootlid of the Dyna was changed to a full width lid on the PL17, making for much easier loading.
One more change I just remembered: Early cars had all aluminum gastanks, which were switched to steel probably when Panhard dropped aluminum for the body due to its 3X higher cost – somewhere around ’55. I have a collection of aluminum tanks which fit either body that someone saved from the crusher.
I recall seeing one of these in Germany back in the 70s, but hearing it first – that engine sounded like two June bugs fighting like mad in a coffee can. Just amazingly cool and fascinating cars as Ken mentioned. So much neat engineering.