Important Oddity: ’59 Deutsch-Bonnet HBR 5

Panhard was one of the oldest names in car manufacturing, dating back to 1872. By 1955 they had lost their upmarket image and had to be rescued by Citroen, who eventually bought them in 1965. Their post-war design, the Dyna, featured a jewel of a little 848cc air-cooled flat twin, pushing out over 60 Hp in stock trim. The firm of DB, (Deutsch-Bonnet, the full names of the owners being dropped to avoid anti-German post-war sentiment) used this wonderful engine as the heart of their advanced sports coupe, designed for endurance racing. It featured a very Lotus-like method of construction: a fiberglass monocoque astride a backbone chassis with outriggers at each end to accept the suspension. The DB Panhard coupe was class H winner of virtually every important sports car race in the world. Deutsch-Bonnets have won 1600 race victories. About 430 of the standard HBR 5 were built. Today’s Deutsch-Bonnet came to the seller in a collection of cars from a major Northeast museum. The seller has got the DB running and it appears all systems are in order. The chassis is rust free and the mileage is 42,650 and they assume it is correct. We believe these are VSCCA eligible even though the their cut-off is ’57. In any case, get this one in order and the event world is your oyster. Click here to bid and the BIN is $28,000.