Tatra (company)
Tatra is a Czech vehicle manufacturer from Kopřivnice. Owned by the TATRA TRUCKS a.s. company, it is the third oldest company in the world producing motor vehicles with an unbroken history. The company was founded in 1850 as Ignatz Schustala & Cie. In 1890, it became a joint-stock company and was renamed the Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft. In 1897, the Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft produced the Präsident, which was the first factory-produced automobile with a petrol engine to be made in Central and Eastern Europe. The First Truck was made a year later, in 1898. In 1918, the company was renamed Kopřivnická vozovka a.s., and in 1919 it changed from the Nesselsdorfer marque to the Tatra badge, named after the nearby Tatra Mountains on the Czechoslovak-Polish border.
In the interwar period, Tatra came to international prominence with its line of affordable cars based on backbone tube chassis and air-cooled engines, starting with Tatra 11. The company also became the pioneer of automotive aerodynamics, starting with Tatra 77. Following the 1938 German-Czechoslovak war and Munich Agreement, the town of Kopřivnice was occupied by Nazi Germany and Tatra's manufacturing capacity was directed towards military production. Trucks like Tatra 111 became instrumental both for the German Nazi war effort as well as post-war reconstruction in Central Europe and Soviet Union.
Today, Tatra's production focuses on heavy, off-road trucks based on its century-long development of backbone chassis, swinging half-axles, and air-cooled engines. The core of its production consists of the Tatra 817, intended primarily for military operators, and the Tatra Phoenix, aimed primarily for the civilian market. In 2023, the company plans to produce over 2,000 trucks.
Early years
In 1850, Ignaz Schustala founded "Ignatz Schustala & Cie" in Kopřivnice, and the company entered the business of manufacturing horse-drawn vehicles.In the 1880s, the company began manufacturing railroad cars.
In 1890, the company became a joint-stock company, and was renamed the Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft. Also that year, Hugo Fischer von Röslerstamm became the company's technical director. After Schustala died in 1891, von Röslerstamm took over the management of the business.
In 1897, the company began the creation of an automobile with an internal combustion engine. Using a Benz automobile purchased by von Röslerstamm as inspiration, the company built its first car, the Präsident, under the direction of engineers Hans Ledwinka and Edmund Rumpler. The Präsident was exhibited in Vienna later that year. The company began taking orders for cars, and between 1897 and 1900, nine improved cars based on the Präsident were made.
The first car to be completely designed by Ledwinka was the, which was produced in 1900. The Nesselsdorf A was equipped with a rear-mounted engine, and had a top speed of. 22 units were built.
The Nesselsdorf A was followed in 1902 by the Type B, which featured a central engine.
Ledwinka then left the company to concentrate on steam engine development. He returned in 1905 and designed a completely new car, the Type S, which was equipped with a 4-cylinder engine.
In 1912, production was badly affected by a strike that lasted 23 weeks, and von Röslerstamm left the company. In 1916, Ledwinka left the company again, this time to work for one of its competitors, Steyr-Werke in Graz.
Tatra concept
In 1919, the company began using the Tatra brand for its cars.In 1921, the company was renamed "Kopřivnická vozovka". That year, the company's director, Leopold Pasching, convinced Ledwinka to return to the company to run its new car plant.
Ledwinka's next design, the Tatra 11, which was released in 1923, featured a rigid backbone tube with swinging semi-axles at the rear, giving independent suspension. The Tatra 11 was fitted with a front-mounted, air-cooled two-cylinder engine.
In 1924, the company was renamed "Závody Tatra".
The Tatra 17, released in 1925, featured a water-cooled six-cylinder engine, and fully independent suspension.
In 1926, the Tatra 11 was succeeded by the Tatra 12, which was similar to the Tatra 11, but was equipped with four-wheel brakes.
In 1927, the company was renamed "Ringhoffer-Tatra".
Prewar streamliners
Tatra's specialty was luxury cars using the most recent technology, going from air-cooled flat-twins to fours and sixes, culminating with the OHC 6-litre V12 in 1931. In the 1930s, under the supervision of Austrian engineer Hans Ledwinka, his son Erich and German engineer Erich Übelacker, and protected by high tariffs and absence of foreign assemblers, Tatra began building advanced, streamlined cars after obtaining licences from Paul Jaray, which started in 1934 with the large Tatra 77, the world's first production aerodynamic car. The average drag coefficient of a 1:5 model of the fastback Tatra 77 was recorded as 0.2455. It featured a rear-mounted, air-cooled V8 engine.Tatra and the conception of the Volkswagen Beetle
Both Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche were influenced by the Tatras. Hitler was a keen automotive enthusiast, and had ridden in Tatras during political tours of Czechoslovakia. He had also dined numerous times with Ledwinka. After one of these dinners Hitler remarked to Porsche, "This is the car for my roads". From 1933 onwards, Ledwinka and Porsche met regularly to discuss their designs, and Porsche admitted "Well, sometimes I looked over his shoulder and sometimes he looked over mine" while designing the Volkswagen. There is no doubt that the Beetle bore a striking resemblance to the Tatras, particularly the Tatra V570. Like the Beetle, the Tatra 97 of 1936 had a rear-located, rear-wheel drive, air-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine accommodating four passengers and providing luggage storage under the front bonnet and behind the rear seat. Another similarity between this Tatra and the Beetle is the central structural tunnel. Tatra launched a lawsuit against Volkswagen for patent infringement, but this was stopped when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. At the same time, Tatra was forced to stop producing the T97. The matter was reopened after World War II, and in 1965 Volkswagen paid the Ringhoffer family in an out-of-court settlement.Tatra and Volkswagen's body design were preceded by similar designs of Hungarian automotive engineer Béla Barényi, whose sketches resembling the Volkswagen Beetle date back to 1925.
War years
After the 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Tatras were kept in production, largely because Germans liked the cars. Many German officers died in car accidents caused by driving the heavy, rear-engined Tatras faster around corners than they could handle. At the time, as an anecdote, Tatra became known as the 'Czech Secret Weapon' for the scores of officers who died behind the wheel; at one point official orders were issued forbidding German officers from driving Tatras.Tatra was instrumental in the production of trucks and tank engines for the German war effort.
Postwar management
The factory was nationalised in 1945, almost three years before the Communist Party came to power, and in January 1946 was renamed "Tatra Národní Podnik". Although production of prewar models continued, a new model, the Tatra 600 Tatraplan was designed—the name celebrating the new Communist planned economy and the aeroplane inspiration. It went into production in 1948. In 1951, the state planning department decided that the Tatraplan should henceforth be built at the Škoda plant in Mladá Boleslav, leaving Tatra free to concentrate on trucks, buses, and railway equipment.The Tatra 603
In 1953, amid much dissatisfaction among Communist party leaders with the poor-quality official cars imported from Russia, Tatra was again permitted to produce a luxury car, the Tatra 603. Much like Tatra's prewar cars, it was driven by a rear-mounted, air-cooled V8 and had the company's trademark aerodynamic styling. The Tatra 603 initially featured three headlights, and the first prototypes had a central rear stabilising fin, though this feature was lost on production vehicles. It was also fitted with almost American-style thick chrome bumpers with bullets. Almost entirely hand-built, Tatras were not available for normal citizens as they were not permitted to buy them. The cars were reserved for the Communist Party elite and industrial officials, as well as being exported to most other communist nations as official state cars. Notably, Cuban President Fidel Castro had a white Tatra 603, custom-fitted with air conditioning.Tatra 603s were built until 1975, a twenty-year reign as one of communism's finest cars. Numerous improvements were made during its production run, although not all vehicles built were actually new but rather reconditioned. In exchange for a newer model year car, the older vehicle was returned to the factory. There, it was upgraded to current model year specifications, refinished, and sent out again as a putatively new vehicle to replace another older T603. This makes it difficult to trace the history of surviving vehicles.