John Simister: Panhard PL17 – champion of automotive diversity

So what? It's where automotive evolution has converged across the world's car brands, it works and there are more important things to worry about. Such as will my iPhone connect properly? Is the radio DAB? Will I get the claimed 70mpg? 

Before the world went, well, global, cars were much more diverse. We're always hearing how diversity is a good thing, but back in the original Goodwood era, we had no idea how lucky we were as far as automotive diversity is concerned. Not other types of diversity, perhaps, but that's probably outside this column's scope.

You could have cars with engines pointing different ways and driving different axles, engines with four strokes to the operating cycle or two, engines cooled by water or air, suspension by leaf springs, coils or torsion bars. Myriad other variations, too: you get the idea. And I haven't even started on the styling.

Particular carmakers had unique ways of solving universal problems. Particular countries had their own flavour of car design and engineering, be it dictated by tradition, taxation, terrain or anything else. I have always been drawn to cars that step far outside the norm, cars with technical intrigue and a design story to tell. And such cars are always fascinating to drive.

One such car has nibbled away at me for years, ever since I encountered real examples on our first foreign family holiday in 1963 and my father bought me a French Dinky model of it. The model, in pale mauve, is still in the cupboard behind me as I write this. It is of a Panhard PL17, a bug-eyed, streamlined saloon with thick aluminium bumpers, seating for six across two bench seats and a flat floor, and the possibility of 90mph from its 848cc, air-cooled, flat-twin engine overhanging the front wheels under a giant alligator bonnet.

OK, you need the assertively named Tigre version, with its buzzing 50bhp, to reach that heady pace, but even the regular article with 42bhp moved through the air far more smartly than you would ever expect. Let us not forget that a PL17 won the 1961 Monte Carlo Rally.

There's an almost wilful madness to the PL17's design, and it was descended from something even madder, the Dyna Z which began life in 1954 with an all-aluminium body. That, in turn, had its roots in the post-war Dyna X, designed by Jean Albert Grégoire of pre-war Tracta fame and a pioneer of front-wheel drive.

This was ironic, given that the company pioneered the once-conventional layout of front engine and rear-wheel drive as the Système Panhard in motoring's earliest years, but it meant that when Panhard hit deep financial trouble in 1955, front-driven Citroën was a sympathetic rescuer. Or so it seemed until Citroën took complete control in 1965, killed the PL17 and stopped production of Panhard's surviving 24BT and 24CT coupés in 1967.

Panhards were sold in small quantities in the UK but you had to be a bit eccentric to buy one. Even a similarly streamlined Citroën ID or DS seemed normal next to the PL17, not least because it had an engine normal people could relate to. Today, PL17s and their relatives do venture out occasionally; I encountered a cluster at Brooklands on Drive-it Day in 2011, including one converted into a half-car trailer to match its bright green tow car, and the Oily Rag meeting at Bicester Heritage has been known to attract a few more. It's that sort of car, appealing to lovers of nuts and bolts and strange machinery at work.

And then there was the celebration dinner in Hamburg, I think, to mark the crowning of the current Fiat 500 as Car of the Year 2008. It took place in a converted warehouse containing a car museum, classic car storage, restoration workshops and a few classic car dealers. One of these had for sale, at a cruelly affordable price, a freshly-restored PL17 and my heart was a-flutter, not least because it was painted the light mauve of my Dinky Toy.

Surely, fate had brought us together. This match was meant to be, and oh! how I agonised as we drank more of Fiat's vino Rosso. But that's what wine does, as many unwise eBay purchases too often confirm, and I resisted. One very strange small foreign car with a weird engine is enough, I thought (my Saab 96 two-stroke), and the Panhard stayed in its showroom.

I haven't even driven a PL17 yet. It might be awful. But, somehow, I think it would be marvellous.