Panhard PL17.

There's a Renault Juvaquatre in a field not too far from here with a sign on it that reads "OLD CARS AVAILABLE" with a phone number. I called the number and the guy told me some of he cars he had available. One of them was a Citroen Dyane. Could be interesting for 500 Euros so I went to look at it.

One look at the Acadiane and I wasn't interested. First of all, it's not a Dyane but an Acadiane, the "truckette" version of the Dyane. The body is full of poorly covered rust and a lot of parts are missing.

What caught my eye was a Panhard PL17 behind the Dyane. For those who don't know, Panhard was a French car company that made cars until the late 1960s. They were taken over by Citroen and died shortly after. They're the guys who invented the Panhard rod in your car (if it has one). Panhards are far from common, even in France.

PL17s have an air cooled 2-cylinder (very similar mechanically to the Citroen 2CV) so it's a bit of an interesting engine to work on. This particular one apparently ran recently but is out of gas right now. The owner claims it runs fine, I want to find out for myself. It's well worn but 98% complete. The floodboards are rusty and would eventually need to be replaced but that's the worst rust on it.


Stay tuned, if I can get it started I'll likely buy it.