Panhard features at the 2008 Bremen Classic Motorshow

"Panhard" in Bremen: Special show for a pioneering car brand.

The tricolour will be blowing over the Bremen Classic Motorshow from 1 to 3 February 2008. Every year, the event presents highlights from automotive history to classic vehicle fans and enthusiasts in the Bremen exhibition halls. The main focus of the 2008 show will be "France". In the motorcycle segment a cross-section of bikes will be on display featuring numerous brands from French two-wheeler history, and in the car section, too, everything will revolve around Germany's south-west neighbour. There will be some real rarities from the French manufacturer Panhard to admire which are sure to be a treat for the eyes.

Ulrich Knaack is a vehicle historian and an expert on car building in France. "Anyone who becomes involved in the car make Panhard has to go right back to the roots of automotive engineering", says Knaack, who is also a member of the highly reputed trade journalist group "F-Kubik". "For René Panhard and his partner Emile Levassor were already building Deutz gas engines under licence at their company near Paris as far back as from 1876", is one of the many facts Knaack knows from his knowledge of history. "That is how it came about that there was contact to Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Emile Levassor visited them in Cannstatt in 1888 and saw the first feasible built-in engine for vehicles of all kinds. The parties agreed on licensed production."

For the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 Panhard & Levassor decided to build their own cars with the help of the licensed Daimler engines, and they had some brilliant ideas: the Panhard-Levassor cars were built according to a principle that was soon to establish itself as the standard worldwide. The engine was in front of the driver, the change speed gear-box was arranged behind it, and the car had rear wheel drive. Panhard & Levassor built two vehicles as prototypes in 1890 and 1891 which were initially used by the owners themselves for tests. "The first serial production of PL cars in the year 1891 can be seen as the real start of car production", says Knaack in recognition of this historic occurrence. Accordingly, France was the country in which the car first spread as a means of transport. So it's no surprise that the first car races in the world were also held there. The first real motor race - the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race - was held in 1895. The winner was a PL, with Emile Levassor at the wheel. Some time later four PL cars took the first places at the Paris-Marseille-Paris race. And it was not to be the last time that trophies went to the PL bolides. The Bremen Classic Motorshow will bring this era of French automobile history to life when it presents the oldest - still roadworthy - Panhard of the first 1892 series together with a 12-litre Grand Prix car from 1908.

In 1947, the Dyna X rang in a new revolutionary era at Panhard (the company in the meantime left out the second founder name). "The focus was now on popular middle-class cars which had air-cooled two-cylinder engines right up to the end of car production in the year 1967", says Knaack. "These engines showed themselves to be technical masterpieces with which it was even possible to win long-distance races such as the Monte Carlo Rally or the 24-Hour Le Mans Race.

But Panhard displayed technical brilliance in other fields, too, for example with the first integral body-frame made of aluminium in a large-series car." In order to document this era, too, the prototype of the successful Panhard CD will be on show at the fair.

The Bremen Classic Motorshow will display unique exhibits that are guaranteed to bring this exciting era to life - an era in which there were even Panhard derivatives such as the Dyna-Veritas in Germany. The highlights of the special show, including the early Panhard & Levassor cars, the Dynavia and the CD, will be on loan for the event from the Musée National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse/ France, the partner of Messe Bremen. Vehicles on loan from private collections such as a Dynamic, a Dyna-Veritas and a PL17, will round off the picture. The Panhard 24 with its double headlights behind a glass cover came out in 1965 and was the last Panhard to be built in series production - already under the auspices of Citroën which had taken over Panhard's car section in the year 1955.

And by the way: Knaack mentions that since Summer 2007 there have been as yet unconfirmed rumours from France that the company Peugeot SA which with the takeover of Citroën in 1976 gained ownership of trademark rights wants to relaunch the name Panhard for a car in the upper class segment.

The Bremen Classic Motorshow opens on 1 February at 9 o'clock. Opening times: Friday 1 February to Sunday 3 February 2008 daily from 09:00 to 18:00. Phone: 01 80 / 55 58 37 42 (12cts per minute), Internet www.classicmotorshow.de

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