Panhard Dyna X
Encyclopedia
Jean-Albert Grégoire
Jean-Albert Grégoire was one of the great pioneers of the front-wheel drive car. He contributed to the development of front wheel drive vehicles in two ways...
and first exhibited as the AFG (Aluminium Français Grégoire) Dyna at the Paris Motor Show in 1946.
Mindful of the precarious economical condition of France in the aftermath of war, and aware of government enthusiasm for expanding the strategically important aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
industry, the Panhard
Panhard
Panhard is currently a French manufacturer of light tactical and military vehicles. Its current incarnation was formed by the acquisition of Panhard by Auverland in 2005. Panhard had been under Citroën ownership, then PSA , for 40 years...
company, which had been known in the 1930s an a manufacturer of expensive six- and eight-cylinder sedans, purchased the rights to build the little car. The dramatic change of direction was not well received by everyone at Panhard, but it did usher in a period during which Panhard was one of the most loyal followers of the Pons Plan. In view of the fates of France's luxury auto-makers in the next ten years, and the huge development potential that Panhard extracted from the Dyna X, this adherence to the Pons Plan was probably good for Panhard, at least until the early 1960s. The Dyna was made production ready and was emerging in commercial quantities from Panhard's Ivry
Ivry-sur-Seine
Ivry-sur-Seine is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris....
plant by 1948: it set the pattern for Panhard passenger cars until the firm abandoned automobile production in 1967.
The car was also known as the Dyna 110, the Dyna 120 and the Dyna 130. The numbers in these names represented the progressively increasing maximum speeds (in kilometers per hour), as engine power and size increased during the production run.
The Dyna X saloon was replaced by the larger Panhard Dyna Z
Panhard Dyna Z
The Panhard Dyna Z was a lightweight motor car made by Panhard of France. It was first presented to the press at a Paris restaurant named "Les Ambassadeurs" on 17 June 1953 and went into production the following year...
in 1954, although some of the sporting derivatives continued in production for a few more years.
The Body
GrégoireJean-Albert Grégoire
Jean-Albert Grégoire was one of the great pioneers of the front-wheel drive car. He contributed to the development of front wheel drive vehicles in two ways...
had during the 1920s and 1930s become known for his expertise in two particular areas of automobile construction, these being lightweight bodies and front wheel drive. The AFG Dyna, planned under difficult circumstances in occupied France, had an all-steel tubular frame chassis, to which was attached a lightweight aluminium four-door superstructure. The style of the saloon was modern and aerodynamic. Contemporary press photographs showing the car with three elegant young women seated in the front and three more in the back were presumably designed to emphasize the car's interior space, and the Dyna X certainly was usefully wider than the Renault 4CV
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV was an economy car produced by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947-July 1961. The first French car to sell over a million units, the 4CV was ultimately superseded by the Renault Dauphine....
. Nevertheless, the photographs almost certainly employed exceptionally thin young ladies and/or a certain degree of image manipulation, and it would have made more sense, even in that age of austerity, to view the Dyna X as a four seater for most purposes.
The compact engine and the lack of a radiator permitted a wind-cheating front design on which the headlights perched like frogs' eyes, between the wings and bonnet line. The shape of the car changed little during its model life, but one change that did occur involved the headlights and took place early in 1948 when the stand alone conventionally formed headlights were replaced by headlights that could be described as integrated into the bodywork, by means of a reducing torpedo shaped molding linking the rear of each headlight to the space between the wing and the hood/bonnet. The front grille also changed at least once.
Alternative bodies included the two-door cabriolet and a 3-door estate version. A ‘Fourgonette’ light van version was also offered.
The chassis and engine of the Dyna turned up in the Panhard Dyna Junior sports car of 1951 and were also a popular basis for low-volume lightweight sports cars produced by specialist manufacturers.
The Engine
The Dyna X’s low profile engine was characteristically idiosyncratic. The two cylinderFlat-twin
A flat-twin is a two cylinder internal combustion engine with the cylinders arranged on opposite sides of the crankshaft. It is part of the class of flat engines, sub-type "boxer", and shares most characteristics of those engines.-Motorcycle use:...
front mounted boxer unit was air-cooled. At launch in 1946 the 610 cc unit delivered a claimed maximum output of 24 hp (17.6 kW) at 4000 rpm, which by 1949 had increased to 28 hp at 5000 rpm. The car’s aluminium body gave it an excellent power-to-weight ratio and in this form a maximum speed of 110 km/h (68 mph). The Dyna X made a considerable impression in the touring car championships of the late 1940s. The car was also noted for its frugal fuel consumption.
Engine displacement was increased in 1950 to 745 cc, and to 851 cc in 1952, by which time claimed output had increased to 40 hp (29 kW) in the Dyna 130, named for its 130 km/h (81 mph) top speed.
Running gear
The gearbox was a four speed manual unit controlled using a column mounted lever, featuring synchromesh on the top three ratios. Power was transmitted to the front wheels, front wheel drive having been a specialty and an enthusiasm of Grégoire for many years.Commercial
In July 1948, in a period during which much of the news was gloomy the car received favourable publicity when an enthusiastic customer called Georges Desmoulin, with two friends, drove a standard car to the north of Finland, well within the Arctic circleArctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
, covering long distances on roads which, in the north, were still unmade. Desmoulin expressed his delight with the comfort and reliability of the car.
Commercially, the Dyna X nevertheless got off to a hesitant start when compared to the Renault 4CV
Renault 4CV
The Renault 4CV was an economy car produced by the French manufacturer Renault from August 1947-July 1961. The first French car to sell over a million units, the 4CV was ultimately superseded by the Renault Dauphine....
, which appeared around the same time and which would head the French auto sales charts for much of the 1950s, and the Citroen 2CV
Citroën 2CV
The Citroën 2CV |tax horsepower]]”) was an economy car produced by the French automaker Citroën between 1948 and 1990. It was technologically advanced and innovative, but with uncompromisingly utilitarian unconventional looks, and deceptively simple Bauhaus inspired bodywork, that belied the sheer...
, which also caught the mood of the market. Critically, both Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
and Citroen
Citroën
Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...
were able to support their sales with a far more extensive national network of dealers and service outlets than that established by Panhard
Panhard
Panhard is currently a French manufacturer of light tactical and military vehicles. Its current incarnation was formed by the acquisition of Panhard by Auverland in 2005. Panhard had been under Citroën ownership, then PSA , for 40 years...
. Sources differ as to the number of Dynas produced: according to a conservative source, by 1954 a respectable 47,049 Dyna X’s had been built , including 33,093 of the four-door saloons.