Saw a Panhard 24 car

[Dave T]

Last year, I came across someone who never heard of Saab. My turn.....

Saw a circa 1967 Panhard 24 car that is made in France. Never heard of it until I looked it up. This picture is not the actual car that I saw. I wonder how is parts availability.

[nordwulf]

I heard about Panhard cars and learned in college about Panhard rods but never seen one of these cars in person. Why don't they design cars like this anymore..?

[euromobile900]

A lot of the earlier ones had aluminum bodies, too!

A recent car that really embodies the Panhard spirit is the Honda Insight (first gen, three-cylinder, 2000-2006). Tiny aluminum unibody, low-power efficient powerplant with *just enough* oomph to make the car keep up, streamlined shape, and no compromises.

[Dave T]

About 14,000 were produced from around 1964(?) until 1967. Very few are in the U.S. The one that I saw may be the one that was bought in France and imported into the Seattle area around 2008. The owner or someone with the same name passed away in 2009 but I saw the car driving two days ago. I had to be somewhere at 2 pm and it was 1:58 pm so I couldn't follow the car to take a photo. I did slow down so it could pass me in the fast lane.

The front of the car has a sloping hood similar to a Citroen D or Triumph Spitfire. It's air cooled but not too noisy.

I saw it on the right as that car was waiting to turn right. "What is that? Never seen anything like it?" A car was behind me blocking the view but soon the road turned from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. I drove slowly so that Panhard would pass me but then I had to turn right. Luckily, it sped past me. Total time that I looked at the car, 1 second for the front, 4 seconds from the side and rear....enough time to burn a mental image long enough to google it an hour later.

A Panhard owner in Nevada runs a Panhard Club and e-mailed me a picture of his dark blue Panhard 24bt.

[Dave T]

Good news! I learned that the owner of the Seattle area Panhard 24 is probably alive! The person that passed away has the same name, which is not too common, and was about the same age as the owner. I concluded this after seeing a forum post posted after the date of death.

The next step is to locate the owner and see if he will display his car for fans to see it.