Clément-Panhard

The Clément-Panhard was a light car designed in 1898 by Arthur Constantin Krebs, manager of Panhard et Levassor, from his 1896 patent for a car with an electromagnetic gearbox, whose licence Emile Levassor had acquired. When Adolphe Clément, chairman of the Panhard-Levassor board, saw that the Panhard factory could not meet the demand for about 500 of the new model, he built it under licence at his Levallois-Perret factory as the Voiture Clément-Panhard, or VCP. It was launched at the first Paris Motor Show in December 1898, where 300 orders were taken, and production ran at least until 1902. The engine was a single-cylinder four-stroke of 763 cc and 3.5 hp, air-cooled with a water-cooled head, mounted at the rear, and the car had a mechanical constant-mesh gearbox, centre-pivot rack steering and a tubular steel chassis. It weighed 350 kg and reached 30 km/h. Perhaps 500 to 600 were made, and 17 survive.