Panhard PL-17 2-cyl '61

A remarkable vehicle you all remember. . .so I won't bother to describe it. [Horizontally-opposed air-cooled 850cc twin. Roller-bearing camshaft. Torsion-bar valve-return springs. Seated 6 and got 40 MPG. Aluminum bumpers.] When we took it in for its first service at the big Citroën distributor in Hayes, Middlesex, the mechanics were pretty scathing about what they felt to be the French laid back attitude regarding engineering.

[While our adventures on the high and low roads of Europe that summer are wothy of their own chapter-- with lots of silent 8mm movies available-- the great part of this story is that about six years later that same curvy aluminum kart became my first lover. I lost my standard-shift virginity on her. Learned about front wheel drive in the snow. How to pull away from an uphill light. How to do 80 on White Springs Road at midnight with the oil light screaming and a blonde strangely silent beside you. . . who uncomplainingly stayed with the dead car while I hitched a ride to get a couple quarts of oil for the dry sump. {Thanks.} And how to downshift to an unsynchronized first gear (stop dead in your tracks, ouch). After countless adventures and miles of bailing wire, sold to my pal Jethro Loftus for $25, who later lost track of it on the high speed back roads of the Berkshires. --LLL]