The Panh-iata, The Dyna Zoom-Zoom gets another chance

Remember this?  When I bought a Panhard Dyna Z because I just can't resist weird cars, and when I successfuly destroyed a Prius and unsucessfully put the Panhard on it like a Hat?  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/the-pri-hard-dyna-z-another-noconesgarage-project/259633/page6/

Then I decided to use junk around my garage and sort of lazily mockup a build using some Miata subframes and a Subaru EJ22 I had?

And then sort of got frustrated and decided to sell everything but no one bought it?

Well Pepperidge Farm remembers.  

And I got to thinking.  The Miata subframes worked appered to work really good with the car size.  But to make them work I would have to fabricate a simple tube chassis to hold everything including shock mounts.  I also don't have all the parts I would need for the rest of the running gear so I'm going to be chasing pedals and steering columns and wiring and all that needs something to bolt to..  and the floor on the Panhard isn't so great so some steel would be nice..  ..  You can probably see where this is going?

Enter Top Flite, the most hail damagest Miata I have seen.  Seriously there is no metal panel unaffected by hails wrath.   The car came from tenessee and was a insurance buyback rebuilt title car.   The previous owner put about 30K miles on it (there is 109K on the chassis) over about 10 years and just kinda stopped driving it.  It sat for a while and now it's in my garage.  It has no Transmission.  Like literally it was removed for use in a turbo Miata.

So about 15 minutes after it got home I put it in the service postion and began disassembly.  The longer this stayed around the garage as  a "complete miata" the more likely I was to attempt to use it as a Miata and I don't need that.

And After lunch

The last thing I did today was throw the Panhard hood on to check if it fits better then a Prius.

At this point nothing irreversable has been done to the Miata. 

That will change next time I am in the garage.   The hood still can go down about 2" and nothing has been cut on the Miata chassis.  The better news is that the sill botoms of the Panhard would only be about 1" above the Pinchwelds on the Miata.   This is MUCH better then the 3" that the Prius was.  

So the plan is a pretty straightforward bodyswap.  I want to keep the Miata HVAC but the interior will be all Panhard.  I will also get the car running with the Miata engine and a 5 speed trans.  And this will attempt to be done for the Challenge and roadtripped down.   

Better get to sawzalling.

nocones said:

 

So the plan is a pretty straightforward bodyswap. 

 

 

Yes. Yes. YES!

Can't find words to express how excited I am about this :D

if at first you don't succeed...

buy another car, and then

....[grind, grind, and grind] again

How do the seats look? And I am very happy to see the panhard make another return

Sweet!!

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

The seats aren't bad.  I am probably going to recover them and use them in the Willy's truck but I may decide I don't need them.  I don't think they will work in the actual Panhard build.

And Ruined

Nope.

Not ruined. Evolved.

This is wonderful. One of my all time favorite 4 door sedan shapes with capable modern performance, and RWD swapped for handling prowess. Much better than the Prius swap that I already liked. Magnifique!

I'm just glad nocones is doing stuff in the garage again

Such Sawzall.  

Observation.  Miatas are not as high strength steel dense as Prius.  I did this with 2 blades.  Total.  The Prius took over 10.  The pillars of a Miata cut like butter.  Prius it was horrible.  

With this removed the hood sit much lower in the back.

But the front fouled on the bumper mount and stuff.  So.  More slicing which again was shockingly easy.  

Now the hood sits level, and on the top of the tires.  

Remember the suspension is very extended because I've removed a transmission and probably 300lbs or more of body and stuff.  

So the wheels will come up probably 4" and the whole car will lower.  That will mean cuts and flares.  Not sure what look I will go for it will depend on final wheels.  Singleslammer has some Mazda 2 steelies that I want to try.  

I have faith / trust in you... and I know camera perspectives can do weird things...

this looks a bit... forlorn?  er... "nose down" to me?

I've had a long day, and I'm blanking on volvoclearinghouse(?)'s Lemons build, with the body swap onto a Lincoln... where the nose ended up a bit off angle to/from/with the rest of the car.  Not that that build was 'bad', and I don't know panhard's at all... so maybe they're supposed to be like that.

but... sometimes it pays to say "huh, that looks odd to me", even if sometimes it doesn't pay to do that.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

I think it's just camera angle.  My understanding is the bumper is level on a Panhard.  The bottom of the hood is the top of the bumper and is basically level.  

A final check will occur when the body is mounted.  The hood fits against an angle on the side and I'll be able to verify the hood is..  at whatever angle is correct.  It is a unique looking hood.  Very. ..  homely 

I know this is blasphemy, but as much as I love flares, have thought about going with skinnier tires, maybe just up front so you can keep the arch design?

Actually, disregard. Looking at the pic of the one you posted, those arches could go up a bit :D

Radiused wheelwells and skinny tires is the way to go here i believe. Need some way to put a lip in the outside of the fender for character and strength afterwards, but it would really look good. Way better than flares. 

At least in my head on a sunday morning during my first cup of coffee 

If the Miata is too wide the only way to widen the Panhard would be to widen the whole body beneath the roof pillars. Flares would break the "jelly mold" shape.

Those wheels look to be 7" wide and a typical offset wood be 35-40mm. a 6" steel wheel , 6"wide and a slight fender pull might get close enough. I'll add my vote to the "no flares" camp if at all possible. For steelies, a set of cobalt wheels are decent looking steel rims and can be found in 15x6 or 16x6 with 42mm offset.

Consider the vast ground clearance of the original and consider a mild lift kit to help with the wheel house proportion. It may take more than one solution for a cure.

I'm not sure what will happen with flares.  If I can keep the wheels inside I would like to but I don't want to have to run strange wheels and tires to do it.   It's a little different but people flare 911s all the time and they work.  I think the "roundness" of the back in particular would work with 911 style flares.  

That's said a new decision has entered the mind.  

Someone posted this. 

It's some kind of Panhard Dyna based thing that is either a coupe or has been converted to a coupe.   I was really planning to extend the Miata.  But.   Could the Dyna be shortened to a 2 door? 

Apparently that is a PL17 Coupe.  You can see the STRONG resemblance to a Dyna.  If I shorten the car by 10" to keep the Miata wheelbase there is a lot that would be easier.  But then I would have to seam the roof.  Which is terrifying..

In reply to nocones :

If you shorten the body any rear seat option will disappear.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

Yes and I'm not sure I could realistically make the roof look any kind of decent.  It's probably a fleeting idea that just isn't practical.  Also if would absolutely require paint because no way I'm doing all that welding without much bondo.   I like the idea of at least attempting to keep 4 seats so that's the goal for now.  

Keep it long, the PL17 Coupe looks like a tail heavy roller skate.

In reply to nocones :

That's an interesting idea, but, let's be honest: you're a family man now.  And you already have plenty of single/two seats rides to enjoy as needed.  You want/need a fun car the whole family can enjoy together. 

Added bonus: you can pull it toad style behind your motorhome 

Well crap.   It was time to start cutting the Panhard Body.  So I started by removing the glass because I knew I would break it during the process if it was installed.  

So I was careful and built some boxes for storage and successfully removed the rear.  

But the front as soon as it was released a small chip it had on the edge that either I caused inadvertently or was there already grew across the windshield vertically.  

The windshield had a few more defects then I thought also.  It has 3 pretty good chips that I didn't notice before.  

So yeah.   That sucks.  The windshield probably was going to crack from one of the chips once it started getting heat cycled and moved around.   It's not a bad crack but it would need to be replaced.   I could run lecan/plexiglass whichever is the "right one" but they are not street legal.  

This was always going to be a challenge with this project.  I want it to be useable and an unobtainable windshield doesn't really work with that.   

I suspect I could find one but they probably are prohibitively expensive.   

I'm pretty disappointed.  It probably wasn't really my fault and because of the condition of the seals there was no way to avoid it but it may of nuked the project for me.  

I know I've been back and forth on this one but I'm at a low right now.  It may get given away at this point.   It would make a good Lemons car probably...