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  2. ghost zegt

    DB (until 1947 known as Deutsch-Bonnet) was a French automobile maker between 1938 and 1961, based in Champigny-sur-Marne near Paris. The firm was founded by Charles Deutsch and René Bonnet, an offshoot of the Deutsch family’s existing coachbuilding shop which had been taken over by Bonnet in 1932. Immediately before the war the partners concentrated on making light-weight racing cars, but a few years after the war, starting with the presentation of a Panhard based cabriolet at the 1950 Paris Motor Show, the company also began to produce small road-going sports cars. By 1952 the company no longer had its own stand at the Paris Motor Show, but one of their cars appeared as a star attraction on the large Panhard stand, reflecting the level of cooperation between the two businesses.

    The company was defunct by 1961, as Deutsch and Bonnet’s differing design philosophies hamstrung further cooperation. The number of DB’s built is not certain; estimates of up to 2,000 cars are mentioned but more conservative numbers are closer to one thousand.

    The 1949 DB8 was bodied by Antem of Belgium and shown at the 1949 Paris Salon. While a handsome (winning two concours d’élegances) and modern design, Citroën refused to allow the provision of parts for series production. After DB began to depend on Panhard for engines, Antem was again commissioned to make a cabriolet with the intent to build a small series of street cars.3750 mm (148 in) long, the car weighed 500 kg (1,100 lb) and used the Dyna’s 750 cc flat-two and much of the suspension and drivetrain. As with most DBs, it had a central frame with two outliers. An 850 cc version was also offered, a model which could reach 140 rather than the 125–130 km/h of the smaller one. Naturally, Panhard developed a racing barquette version (called the Tank) of the Antem cabriolet. These competed at Le Mans 1951 as well as several other races. About twenty Antem cabriolets were built in 1951, but DB chose to let it die in favor of a coupé version of the same (“Coach” in French). A few DB-Antem Coach were built, mostly for competition. These had bodywork designed by Deutsch, and again mainly relied on Dyna underpinnings and a central steel-tube frame.

    The steel-bodied, Frua-designed 1952 “Mille Miles” (celebrating class victories at the Mille Miglia) was a mini-GT with a 65 hp Panhard two-cylinder. It was somewhat expensive, and at the 1953 Paris Salon a Chausson-designed DB Coach in fibreglass, although it did not enter production until 1954. The HBR 4/5 model (1954–1959) was the partners’ most successful project to date, with several hundred of the little cars produced between 1954 and 1959. This was followed by the Le Mans convertible and hardtop, which was shown in 1959 and built by DB until 1962, and continued until 1964 by René Bonnet. About 660 of the Mille Miles/Coach/HBR were built, and 232 DB Le Mans[4] (not including the Bonnet-built cars). Later versions could be equipped with engines of 1 and 1.3 litres, and superchargers were also available. No two cars may have been alike, as they were built according to customer specifications from a wide range of options.

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