Panhard Dolomites by Pichon-Parat
Weird Car of the Day #508: 1954 Panhard Dolomites by Pichon-Parat Sens – l'Antidote
You're looking at one of my favourite angles of this tiny sports racing car. When viewed from the side, with its small scale immediately apparent among the street furniture, you'd be forgiven for walking right past this speck of French royalty. At a car show, auction or concours, I'm not sure it would ever command much presence — it's three strides long, as best.
Provided your taste is as refined as mine is, you'll need not worry about ever owning one, as the finer things never come cheaply.
If you want this French drop, now, you're probably into it for well over €100,000, if the seller is being kind.
Comparing invoice to invoice, imagine the personalities who could conceivably either spring for a brand new Jaguar Type 01, built like a brick litterbox—or a well-worn 1954 Panhard X86 Dolomites, which vibrates like a lover's whisper in your inner ear.
Capitalists among you should nod and agree, the market sets the prices. This blue sneeze is every bit the price of vehicles that offer 100x in any attribute for the same cost. Costs and prices—boring. Let's talk about value.
To make this car special, four things had to happen that will never happen again.
One, a French carmaker needed to develop a sprightly yet not too expensive economy car. Enter the Panhard Dyna X, an aluminum-bodied, steel chassis'd economy car with an air-cooled aluminum 2-cylinder engine.
michael banovsky
Two, a French coachbuilder, pardonne-moi, carrossier, of Pichon-Parat, needed to emerge from the wreckage of the Second World War, with founders who'd spent years as friends surviving, sketching. and discussing how to transform ordinary cars into special ones. André Parat, the hands-on builder and Bernard Parat, financing, promotion, style.
Three, regional races had to exist, from circuit competitions to hillclimbs, with enough participants in France and Europe to make this kind of car modification worthwhile. Really, it's a track car from the days when many tracks were a local B-road lined with hay bales for the odd telephone pole.
Four, customers. People who looked at their bank accounts and still decided that cutting up a perfectly good family car to go racing on some weekends was a thrilling way to offload some francs.
By the time Pichon-Parat showed unveiled its Panhard X86 Dolomites at the 1953 Paris Motor Show, it was a well-established carrossier. It had worked on several different vehicle platforms at this point and would go on to create bodywork for many more. (The shortened, baby blue Citroën DS rally car? That's a Pichon-Parat joint.)
Back to our cute little bulba-sports car.
