Devin Panhard - my latest foray into the unknown

alfadriver said:

QuasiMofo said:

Patrick said:

It’s going to Michigan Sunday 

So excited

You, really?  Holy cow, I can only imagine what you sick head is planning.  LOL.  Have fun!!!

Preview through the screen Craigslist style 

In reply to Patrick :

Brilliant idea.  That should be fun.

The donor car is silver but yeah. 2003 2.5RS with a 1958 Panhard body to be used as a family cruiser and rod run car as well as unclassed autocross and Challenge car 

In reply to QuasiMofo :

Before or after the Olds?

Silver and rust, but who’s counting.  I just happen to have a wrx sitting around and the eyeball test says it’s going to work well, much closer than Darth Nader in several areas.

today my buddy came over to help move the driveline with the stuck brake.  By help i mean he manhandled it where i wanted before i could even lift a hand to assist.  He’s a bit of a beast.  Only thing in the way of backing straight up to it now is the forester, which i’ll move by sunday.  Getting the Panhard gone as well as the scrap truck affords the money for the Forester engine, which in turn those profits will afford the money to add on to the shop so i can get cracking on the Devin by building a frame table to work from. 

AngryCorvair said:

In reply to QuasiMofo :

Before or after the Olds?

The Olds went to a nice man in East Lansing who loves it dearly.

The parts car is officially gone(getting back to my thread).

Oregon guy(John) is waiting till it’s warm to crate and ship the bonnet.

i’m now at a point in my life when GRM guys show up and ask where the Devin is.  I want to start sooner than is logistically possible.  It’s eating at me to not be taking the body off to assess the chassis.  

In reply to Patrick :

Things are getting real 

forum member syntheticblinkerfluid has picked up the nose.  

Little back story.  Initially i was told $100 plus crating just to get it out of his way, so I got shipping quotes and asked to let me know when it was ready to schedule freight.  Then I heard nothing.  A few months passed, I heard nothing.  Then the price went up to $200 and no time to crate.  I reached out to local GRM members but couldn’t get anything setup.  I post yesterday seeing if anyone needs something moved westward so I could just drive to oregon(2333 miles one way) to get the nose when Syntheticblinkerfluid posts that he’s leaving Portland heading east in the morning with an empty bed.  I shot an email off last night and got a reply at about 11am my time from seller.  SBF stepped up and is getting it to Chicago for me to pick up.  

That particular nose, the only one likely available in the world at this point, is from the 1957 hm national champion car that now resides in france.  It has some damage on the LF corner and was replaced at some point during the restoration and John stumbled upon it and bought it just because.  Now it’s on the way here.  There are pictures of this very nose in my book!

In reply to Patrick :

I continue to love everything about this car!

Please keep the details coming.

I wonder if this is when the left front of the nose got damaged:

Glad it came together for you ,

my friend is thinking of flying to Germany and Czech to pick up some parts because the last box of Tatra engine parts cost over $1000 to ship.......plane fare is $400-$500...and he can also go by the Messersmitt guy and grab a few things...

Cool, glad to hear that it's coming along. 

David S. Wallens said:

Cool, glad to hear that it's coming along. 

Carli is really bugging me to bump it to the front of the line once we make the garage bigger.  

What has it been, 1.5 years?  So in that time I got the car inside and dry, found a donor car and stripped all the bits from it that I need, sourced the bonnet by accident, and have hundreds of pictures of a frame off restoration of the other one we know of for certain in the country.

i honestly thought it would take 10 years to get to the point i’m at right now.  Most everything that needs done to the car at this point is labor, very little stuff should need purchased beyond fiberglass repair parts, wires, tires, and steel tubes.  Steel tube is silly cheap on the cutoffs rack at the welding shop up the street.

In reply to Patrick :

Interior bits ok?  Have you decided on the livery / vintage your restoring it to?

Gotta admit I have a chubby for this car. You are ideally located for races like putt-in-bay and Pitt vintage gran Prix. Quirky, old enough to be a road legal racecar... slow enough to not have to take things too seriously, and very very rare.

In reply to Indy-Guy :

Interior is basically a fiberglass seat which is there and solid, a wood dash that is there enough for a template, and that’s it.  Still planning to try and get down to the original number panel with oven cleaner or light sanding of the yellow.  Appears red is original color.  I’m planning to keep the existing rear bodywork as it’s been there so long.  I’m hoping to find some evidence of which car it is and how/when it was campaigned before taking a definitive direction. 

This is the car my bonnet is from.  

http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/98-Devin-Panhard-H

unfortunately that car is one that has moved to france, and the pictures i find get sadder the newer we get.  It’s had the numbers removed, turn signals or something installed up front, nasty hubcaps installed, and in the most recent picture i have found of it they removed the little air intake scoops.  They have basically un-racecarred the racecar and turned it into a car show piece, which is depressing.

i can now definitively say i know the whereabouts of 6 of them, 5 are restored and my pile of patina/field find/yuck.  I’m currently trying to put together a picture of each one from the 50’s so we can use the pictures to try and detective our way into which one I have.  I have been scouring any historical records trying to trace each car to at least one specific event.  I’m having trouble connecting Bill Randle to a Devin Panhard, but he did race some different vehicles in the 50’s.  That may be a wild goose chase without access to the scca archives.

Put-In-Bay is super close, but the ferry on lake erie freaks me right out.  

The eagle has landed in ohio.

In reply to Patrick :

This is good news. 

Try the nostalgia forums in autosport. Some of those guys have tons of old race info though mostly European. Might be able to get some pics together.

johndej said:

Try the nostalgia forums in autosport. Some of those guys have tons of old race info though mostly European. Might be able to get some pics together.

I will sign up there, thank you.

i have put in a request with the scca archives for info on bill randle to see if he ever drove one of these.

got access to Bill Randle's descendents?   

They finally meet

For Patrick.... because one Devin isn't enough....

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/markham-york-region/1957-devin-ss-body/1422251568?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

 The usual NMNA but it was posted to a FB Toronto Obscure Cars page that I follow...

cheers

Gordon