Classic cars come out in full force on the first real warm day of spring. Saturday was full of cars windows and tops down from the past, but this has to be the most unexpected thing I’ve ever seen in the rear view mirror. I scrambled and risked a ticket for my fellow curbsiders to get a snap of a Panhard PL 17 in my rear view mirror.
If the vintage auto blogging god up there likes me he’ll give me a second run in with this French oddity that was behind me on Alcatraz Street that evening.
Like Paul, quirky, innovative and European gets my blood going just as much as a crisply styled Bill Mitchell era General Motors product, and someday (soon) we’ll hopefully get to go into this air cooled flat twin sedan that was capable of 40mpg and 85mph. But until then… objects that are closer than they may appear will have to suffice.
Unbelievable, except of course in the Bay Area. Love that tiger-pattern upholstery, and those droopy eyelids. Here’s the full Panhard history, for those curious: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/panhard-back-to-the-future/
Jeeeeze! Just when I was feeling pretty superior about my ’56 Packard find, you have to come along with this. There really is no beating you west coast guys at the car spotting game. 🙁
Seriously, I hope you find it again – it will make for a great CC.
What a fantastic spot. One of my all time favorite cars as well.
Lt. Bullitt looked up into his rear view mirror and said WTF?
I’ll take quirky and European over Bill Mitchell any day.
Good luck driving it around Freddie Flintstone style.
Harry Callahan must have felt lucky after seeing that in his rearview mirror…feel lucky punk??
What a face!
I have always wanted to see one of these “in the flesh”.
We have lots of unusual (to you guys) cars here but that is a really GOLD find good spotting.
The air intake on the front end is so small. Kind of unusual for a car from that era. I’m used to see miles of chrome grill. Flat twins don’t need much cooling then?
60HP in any configuration doesn’t need much cooling. That’s good, eh?
A couple of years ago on my way home from work in LA, I saw a Citroen DS appear from a side street, pull out on to Alvarado St, and then turn left off of Alvarado a couple of blocks later…seeing a DS in that neighborhood in rush-hour traffic as about as expected as seeing Elvis cross the street in front of me. Although I guess Silver Lake is as likely as any other neighborhood in LA.
Then again, I saw a Citroen CX tooling down the 210 a few weeks ago, so maybe old French cars are more common in LA than I thought.
Funny, I snapped a pic of a CX yesterday in downtown Stuttgart. My wife stared at it like it had just crawled out of the ocean. She said, “It’s French, isn’t it?”
Cue the song by The Playmates: Beep Beep (The Little Nash Rambler).