It’s not often we feature two Prime Finds from the same auction, but following last week’s Chevrolet Corvair Monza, that’s exactly what we’ve done ahead of next weekend’s Historics of Brooklands sale at Ascot Racecourse on March 7th – and to be honest, I could have picked a handful more; there’s a smart-looking yellow Porsche 914 for a start, and a Mercedes-Benz 280CE… ok, focus…
As regular readers will know, with our Prime Find we generally try to stay under the £20,000 barrier, and at the same time look for classics that are unusual or different in some way.
This week’s car is both of those things, being a Panhard 24 CT (making it different almost by definition) and with an estimate range of between £12-15,000, falls well within our self-imposed budgetary constraints.
Panhard is one of the oldest names in motoring, and arguably one of the most individual, almost to the point of being wilfully eccentric, but then, they were French, and you only need to look at almost any French car up to about 1985 to see how different and downright interesting French cars used to be; here are just a few; this could have been a very extensive gallery…
Panhard as a name dates back to 1887, when it was known as Panhard et Levassor, after the company’s founders René Panhard and Émile Levassor. They sold their first car in 1890 and there’s a case to be made for calling them the first make of car in series production. On top of that, they were early innovators, being among the first manufacturers to use clutch pedals, modern transmissions and even steering wheels. Their 1891 Systeme Panhard featured a front-mounted engine, rear-wheel drive and a sliding transmission – a layout that was adopted as standard by motor manufacturers for much of the next hundred years.
Despite the tragic death of Levassor while competing in the 1896 Paris-Marseille-Paris race (the company was active in motor sport almost from the beginning), Panhard et Levassor grew into a major motor manufacturer over the next couple of decades.
Between the wars, Panhard’s cars became larger, with bigger engines, introducing six and even eight-cylinder models and by 1931 they had dropped their four-cylinder models completely, a direction from which they would make a sharp u-turn in the post-war years.
After the Second World War, the “Levassor” part of the name was dropped, and Panhard began producing the quirky, streamlined, small-engined, lightweight cars for which they became – and remain – famous, starting with the Dyna X.
This was not entirely voluntary – during this period the French government controlled the supply of raw materials and effectively dictated what type of cars could be built, and by whom. As a result, Citroën were allowed to continue building Traction Avants but had to launch the utilitarian 2CV aslongside it, Simca and Peugeot were obliged to bring back their small cars and Renault introduced the 4CV. Panhard was basically left to look after itself, although the company was “encouraged” to look at using weight saving aluminium for their car bodies for the Dyna X and early Dyna Z models, a forward thinking but almost financially ruinous imposition, as it transpired that the aluminium shells cost almost four times as much as their equivalent in steel.
Economic necessity therefore resulted in a return to steel for the Dyna Z and subsequent models from 1955 onwards, though this did have the unfortunate effect of adding weight to the cars, but this was compensated for by an increased focus on aerodynamics. Efficiency wasn’t just a hollow concept at Panhard, it was a genuine goal, which they also pursued by regularly competing in and winning the Le Mans Index of Performance class no fewer than 10 times, in co-operation with Monopole, Chancel and Deutsch-Bonnet throughout the 1950’s and early 1960’s, with small, ultra-streamlined sports racers that also won numerous other small-engine racing classes.
After the Dyna X and Dyna Z came the PL 17 (PL for Panhard et Levassor), which overlapped for a while with the 24, being produced from 1959 to ’65. The 17 initially kept the centre “unibrow” of the Dyna, and enjoyed a remarkable success in the 1961 Monte Carlo Rally, taking the first three places. However, despite this prestigious sporting success, sales were still relatively low, and Panhard cotinued to struggle financially.
The continuous pressure to keep up with their home market competitors with superior resources caused Panhard chronic financial problems, as a result of which they became more and more enmeshed with Citroën throughout the 1950’s and ’60’s. The two companies’ dealer networks merged, and Citroën took an ever-increasing financial stake on Panhard. By 1967 this process resulted in Citroën swallowing Panhard completely and the famous old name disappeared from the passenger car marketplace, although the company continued building military vehicles until as late as 2012. In the end, Citroën could not really afford to invest in what had essentially become an in-house competitor, concentrating instead on its own models, although the GS introduced in 1970 could be viewed as the successor to the 24.
The Panhard 24 – the name came from their successes in the Le Mans 24 Hours – was announced in 1964 for the 1965 model year, and was offered in C, CT, B, BA and BT versions – the C and CT being coupés, the B and BT versions longer wheelbase models making the car a genuine full four-seater, with the BA being a stripped-down version; the T designation stood for Tigre. It used the same engine as 17 – apparently at Citroën’s insistence – but the body was all new, and what a shape!
Panhard made 28,651 examples of the 24 between 1964 and 1967, and its most direct competitor would be the VW Karmann Ghia – in both regular and Type 34 form. It doesn’t have the cult following of the VW, which has proven to be enduringly popular – more than 444,000 were built over a 19-year period – especially in the US, yet I would take the French 24 over the German car any day. Yes, I wrote that.
The Panhard 24 was not without competition – a few months ago we looked at the wide choice of small coupés that were available during this period, with alternatives from Panhard’s home country including the Renault Floride or Caravelle (the name changed depending on territory), another stylish, rear-engined coupé, this time with a water-cooled four-cylinder, and the Simca 1000 and 1200 Bertone Coupés were also contemporary Gallic rivals, equally beautiful – if not quite so futuristic – and also rear-engined. Unfortunately for Panhard, perhaps its biggest competitor came from its increasingly dominant parent, Citroën, since the 24 cost pretty much the same as the DS, effectively sealing its fate…
So what of “our” Panhard? Well, it’s a 1964 24 Coupé CT, making it the most luxurious and most powerful version, in a very fetching shade of burgundy with silver-grey roof and black interior, a combination which I think suits this sleek car very well – it’s hard to believe the design is over fifty-five years old. The low waistline and generous glasshouse contribute to a feeling of spaciousness, and quirky touches abound both inside and outside the car, such as the spider’s-web red-line zone on the tachometer, and the horizontal swage line that goes round three-quarters of the car – influenced, so it’s said, by a similar design feature on the Chevrolet Corvair. My favourite detail is the temperature gauge mounted in the glovebox lid, which ranges from -20 to +60 degrees Celsius!
It’s front wheel drive, contributing further to the sense of space, with an 848cc two-cylinder boxer engine – somewhat older in design than the futuristic body, dating back to the 1940’s – and it’s 50bhp delivers only adequate performance, pushing the car to a maximum speed of just 150kmh. There’s not a great deal of other information on the auctioneer’s website, other than to say that they understand the car to be sound and a good driver, ready to use. The mileage is unverified and there does not appear to be much documentation with the car, so a careful inspection – recommended for any car we feature on Prime Find – is definitely required but if that inspection satisfies a potential buyer, they will be able to enjoy a car that stands out from the crowd without having spent a vast amount of money. Bearing in mind that the engine is an air-cooled two-cylinder, so there is perhaps not so much to go wrong mechanically, though spare body parts I would expect to be less than easy to find.
As so few are on sale – indeed, this is the only one I can find listed in the UK – it’s hard to know whether the estimate represents good value or not, although further afield, one in the same exterior colour scheme was sold in Belgium last year for EUR 12,350, and there is one currently available in Germany for EUR 16,000, so the estimate would appear to be within a reasonable range. As is our usual practice, we’ve borrowed a few photos from the auctioneer’s website; it will be interesting to see what this very particular car fetches at Ascot racecourse on March 7th.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro