Panhard PL 17
car model
The Panhard PL 17 is an automobile made by the French manufacturer Panhard from 1959 until 1965. Presented on 29 June 1959, as successor to the Panhard Dyna Z, the PL 17 was essentially a facelifted version of its predecessor. The initial four-door saloon (and pickup and van) was joined by the Cabriolet in 1961, and by the Break, a five-door estate version, in April 1963. The Break, developed by Italian company Pan Auto, sat on a longer wheelbase but was of the same overall length.
Model history
The model's name was derived from "PL" for "Panhard et Levassor" (the original full name of the company), with the "17" coming from the sum of 5+6+6, being 5 CV (fiscal horses, in the French power rating system) plus 6 for the car's six seats, plus 6 for the car's economy of 6 L/100 km (47 mpg‑imp; 39 mpg‑US). As the car was developed under close supervision by Citroën, it was also no coincidence that 17 is a lower number than that of the DS 19.
The two-door Cabriolet was first introduced in March 1960 and only available to customers in the United States. Not a runaway success, only 47 examples of this export-only model (internal code L2) were built. A regularly available version for European customers was shown at the 1960 Paris Salon, becoming available in 1961 (L5). The trim level was equivalent to the top-of-the-line sedan, the Grand Standing model.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q639916. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959, 1965, 1961 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Panhard PL 17” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.