Building my holy grail car, a Panhard Dynavia

Most model collectors have a 'holy grail' car that they long to own. When I started collecting, the car I call my 'holy grail', the Panhard Dynavia, was no such thing. It was just another Panhard that I eventually wanted to get. But then it turned out that 1/43 scale models of Panhard Dynavias didn't seem to exist, and so that's when getting one became my 'holy grail' ambition. Here's the (very odd looking) holy grail in question...

It certainly is unusual! The Dynavia was a concept car produced for the 1948 London Car Show. Two were made. One survives, in the French National Car Museum in Mulhouse. The other was driven by its owner, a Swiss gentleman, until it was written off in a crash many years ago. If the Dynavia had been a readily available model it would probably have never become my 'holy grail' but it is an interesting car.

For its time it was advanced. Thanks to its super-slippery Cd of 0.26, its little 605cc flat twin engine got it up to 130km/h and delivered 4.2l/100km fuel consumption. With an ultra-light Duralium body it weighed just 810kg. And it looked very strange indeed, and never went into production.

Recently, I went through the highs and lows and highs of diecast collecting, all in one day. First up, I finally found a 1/43 Dynavia model, made by IDEM, for sale on eBay. Woo hoo! I put in my bid, knowing it might get pricey later on, and then watched the early bidding – even on Day One! – get out of my price range. That was the low...

Then I discovered that my saved eBay search for "1/43 Panhard Dynavia" actually had another listing, but this time for a Panhard Dynavia kit. It was expensive (60 Euros) but I decided I had to get it. Here's a link to another kit for sale at the moment from the company who makes them, CCC Models.

This turned out to be my wise buy of the year, and the Dynavia model being auctioned eventually sold for 360 Euros, which is way out of my price bracket.

Here's the kit, a mixture of resin (the body), plastic (windows),
metal (seats, wheels, fenders etc) and rubber (tyres).
My job is to apply the glue and paint very carefully.

Very helpfully, all the instructions are in French,
but thanks to Google Translate I think I know
what to do.

My first challenge is to find the right murky metallic green colour for the body, and that's proving difficult at the moment. I'll track something down. Somehow!

In the meantime I have been trawling the net looking for reference photos to help me with the building of the model. I found some fab pix at history-of-cars.com, and here they are (pinched without permission of course, but it's a great website!).

During my long lay-off from diecast blogging and creating my photoshopped dioramas, I have been teaching myself the very enjoyable pastime of building models. I've mostly been building plastic kits of planes and ships, but as this is the first time this 60-year-old child has done any model-building, I have been learning a lot.

Now I know why I took up model-building last year. Even though I didn't know it then, I was preparing myself for the important challenge of building my holy grail this year.

Wish me luck!

Fun in Antibes

When the sun is shining cabriolets come into their own, and pictured here in Antibes on the French Riviera, two young men about town in their charming Panhard Dyna Juniors are taking some lovely young ladies for a spin around the waterfront.

As always, these model cars are 1:43 scale. The yellow one is made by Bizarre, from resin,
and the red one is a traditional metal diecast model made by the Spanish firm, IXO. There aren't
that many times when I bother to buy the same model car in two colours, but I do have a soft
spot for Panhard Dyna Juniors. I just love their cuteness, and also the way they managed
to offer drivers all the pleasures of a soft-top car without asking a fortune to buy one. As the
You Tube video below points out, the cabriolet Dyna cost less than the sedan.

I told a friend recently about how cheap the various Panhard models have been to buy, and fairly accurately he observed that perhaps that's because almost no-one outside France, and under 55 years of age, has heard of them. And so I hope to set the record straight, to some small degree, with this posting.

Panhard had something in common with Citroen, who eventually took them over. Both were marvellously innovative car-making companies which were not afraid to be different. (Vive la France!). Panhard, unfortunately, went broke being innovative, while it took a couple of decades longer before Citroen, too wobbled down onto its financial knees. Fortunately, Citroen managed to survive and they still produce excellent cars, while Panhard, alas, only lives on thanks to the efforts of the enthusiasts who restore and maintain the great old ones from times gone by.

And so onto our video, which includes (at 4.44) some Panhard Dyna Junior content, but either side of that moment there's a good little history of Post-War Panhards, and especiallya good look at the Dyna, which is mechanically very similar to the Dyna Junior Cabriolet. A mere 850cc flat twin engine produced a lot of pleasure for its owners, it seems. The Panhard enthusiasts are also worth the price of admission as well.