Start with what the Panhard PL 17 is: a 4-door saloon / 2-door cabriolet / 4-door station wagon with 848 cc air-cooled flat-2, built from 1959 to 1965, at the height of the post-war boom. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
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.
The engineering
The engine is 848 cc air-cooled flat-2; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 805 kg-830 kg. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2570 mm / 2800 mm (Break). These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Panhard line-up the Panhard PL 17 has a clear place: it replaced the Panhard Dyna Z; it handed the line to the Panhard 24; the factory was porte d'Ivry. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Mini Mini, the Dodge Challenger, the Nissan Patrol. Its Panhard stablemates include the Panhard & Levassor M2F Break CnAM 20520 and the Panhard & Levassor 15 CV.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Panhard PL 17 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.