By Gijsbert-Paul Berk
The mighty influence of Citroën (minority shareholder but major client) in the running of Panhard became most apparent when the Panhard management in 1959 started to plan a successor of their PL 17. Monsieur Pierre Bercot, Citroën’s boss, made it clear to Jean Panhard that they would not support the Panhard Company to invest in the development of a new mid-sized ‘berline’ (four door sedan). His argument was that Citroën was shortly going to introduce the Ami, an upgraded version on the platform of the 2CV and was already working on a totally new mid-sized model (the GS) to be launched in 1970. It would be a folly to compete with each other in this segment.