Ancienne usine Panhard & Levassor

The brick facade of the former Panhard and Levassor factory features a massive, arched gateway that once admitted horse-drawn carriages and, later, the pioneers of the automobile industry. In eighteen ninety-one, René Panhard and Émile Levassor began assembling engines here under a Daimler license. They placed the engine in the front of the chassis, a configuration that defined the layout of every car that followed. A later worker recalled the constant, rhythmic thrum of hammers echoing against these walls for decades.