The French company Deutsch & Bonnet was founded in 1932. Charles Deutsch had just taken over the coach building shop of his father, at the tender age of 18, and still doing his engineering studies he, and his mother, decided to sell the working space to Rene Bonnet, 7 years older, and looking for something to locate his expanding garage business.
This is how the partnership started, but real cars were only produced after the second world war when the first DB specials were produced, using a 1911 cc Citroen engine, which came from the dealership DB had at that time. Those cars were reasonably fast, but Citroen did not so much of a future and hence DB turned to Panhard for its twin cylinder air-cooled opposed piston engine. That started a tradition which lasted until 1961, when the eternal partners split up in anger, because Bonnet wanted to switch to Renault engines. Eventually, Deutsch continued for a while as the producer of the CD racing cars, while Rene Bonnet launched the Djet, and his company was later taken over by Matra.
The fame of the DBs is largely based on the dominance on the racing track in the lower capacity classes. The Panhard engine was a very willing machine and the cars scored repeated wins in the Index classification for LeMans (For the French that win was considered more important than all-out victory, which could also explain the difficulties Colin Chapman experienced when he brought a fleet of Lotus IXs to the Sarthe track, just aiming at the Index win).
It is interesting to note that after the split of the two founders in 1961, they met for the first time again during the 24 hours of 1962, where a CD Panhard won the class 700-850 cc, while a Renault engined car entered by Bonnet, became 17th overall and won the 851-1000 cc class.
There were also many DBs used in the single seater racing, and the Monomille is a well know racer, albeit not a fast one. It stands out as one of the few front wheel drive single seaters though.
In 1955 DB launched its most known model, the HBR5. With 660 units build this car became a landmark in sportcars development in France in the fifities. The air colled engine initially had a capacity 0f 851 cc, but later version had 954 cc, producing 70 BHP, which had not much problems with the 640 kg that the car weighed in on the scales. The chassis was a central tube, while the body was made of fiberglass. The top speed of the fastest version was over 180 kph.
Shown here are some examples present during the 2006 LeMans Classic, one as a participant and the other just as a visitor.
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