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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk
From the VeloceToday Archives, April 2014
Since the mid-thirties, when he had developed the body of the Dynamic, Bionier had been interested in aerodynamics. He loved to watch birds in the air and fish in aquaria. Their movements and shapes fascinated him. During the war years he had studied and even made some scale models to determine how the postwar Panhards should look.
‘Like in an airplane.. the Dyna will make you free from the harshness of the ground and its resonances’ is a free translation of the text in this Panhard publicity folder.
By Gijsbert-Paul Berk
From the VeloceToday Archives, March 2014
In Part 1 of his look at Panhard’s remarkable Louis Bionier, Gijsbert-Paul Berk described how Bionier designed the Panoramic and Dynamic Panhards in the 1930s. In Part 2, we learn how the post-war Dyna X was developed.
Was the Panhard Dyna an automotive cuckoo’s egg?
There are some mysteries concerning the origin of the postwar Panhard Dyna. Was it designed by Jean-Albert Grégoire (as some French experts claim on Wikipedia) or by the duo Louis Delagarde, Louis Bionier at Panhard & Levassor? The story of the gestation of this interesting car was extensively described in the review by Peter Vack of the book ‘Panhard, the flat twin cars 1945-1967’ by David Beare on VeloceToday of 8 August 2013 but if you want to refresh your memory we must take you back to the prewar years.
Where the legend began. It is with a Chenard & Walcker Sport 3 Litre of this type that André Lagache and René Léonard won the first edition of the French classic in 1923. Its four cylinder 3 Litre engine developed 95 bhp and allowed to reach 145 km per hour.
Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt
For the first time since 2020, the Parisian show is back at full strength, again spread over three halls. With more than 1,700 vehicles on display, Retromobile continues the tradition that began in 1976. No less than 125,000 people visited the show making it the second highest attendance since its inception. As this year the 24 Hours of Le Mans celebrates its centenary, many exhibitors brought classic racing cars that took part in the famous race.