Panhard 178

The Panhard 178 was a French four-wheel-drive armoured reconnaissance car built by Panhard for the cavalry before the Second World War. Its official name was Automitrailleuse de Découverte Panhard modèle 1935, and it was nicknamed Pan-Pan. It grew out of a cavalry specification of 1931 and 1932 for a long-range scouting vehicle, and the Panhard prototype of 1933 was judged the best of the competing designs from Renault, Berliet and Latil. A crew of four served a 25 mm gun and a coaxial 7.5 mm machine gun, and the low-set V4 engine gave a top speed of about 73 kilometres per hour even though the car weighed over eight tonnes. It was the first four-wheel-drive armoured car mass-produced for a major country. Panhard completed 729 in all, including 176 built after the armistice of 1940 for Germany, which used them as the Panzerspähwagen P204 (f). After the war a derived version, the Panhard 178B, went back into production in France.