Panhard Dynavia

The Panhard Dynavia was a concept car built by Panhard in 1948 as an experiment in aerodynamics. The designer Louis Bionier, who had studied the shapes of birds and fish and tested a scale model in a wind tunnel in 1945, built it on the chassis of the Dyna X. A 610 cc two-cylinder boxer engine sat at the front and drove the front wheels through a four-speed transaxle. The two-door body was made of Duralinox, an aluminium and magnesium alloy, and gave a drag coefficient of only 0.26. With 28 horsepower the car reached about 131 kilometres per hour, some 18 percent faster than the Dyna X with the same drive train. It was first shown at the 1948 Paris Auto Salon and was well received. Panhard kept the first car, which is on permanent loan to the Cité de l'Automobile museum in Mulhouse. A second car was later scrapped after a crash, and the encouraging result led Paul Panhard to approve an aerodynamic body for the Dyna Z.