The People
The two people critical to the development of Tatra’s most significant automobiles, including the subject of this profile, were Hans Ledwinka and Paul Jaray. Ludwinka, born in Austria near Vienna, started his career as a mechanic, studied in Vienna, and was hired by Nesselsdorfer Waganbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft to work on railroad cars, before becoming involved with the company’s first automobiles. Between 1921 and 1937, he was Tatra’s chief design engineer, and one of his most significant designs for Tatra was his rear-engined, air-cooled streamliners, the T77, T77a, T87, and T97 of the mid- to late-’30s. After WWII, he was accused of having collaborated with the Germans and was sentenced to prison by the communist government. Upon his release, in 1951, he retired and moved to Germany where he died in 1967.
Jaray was also born in Austria and studied in Vienna. He was an incredible innovator and was chief design engineer for Fluzeugbau, designing seaplanes. Later, he worked on streamlining airships for Luftshiffbau Zeppelin and designed the LZ-120 Bodensee, a design that influenced the better known Graf Zeppelin and Hindenberg. His love of streamlined design led him to open his own design firm, Stromlinien Karosserie Gesellschaft, in 1927, in Switzerland. He developed and patented a design for a streamlined body shape that was used under license by major automobile manufacturers, including Tatra. It was this design that influenced Ledwinka when he was working on his streamliners. Jaray moved away from automotive design during and after WWII, working on a variety of other devices that used or depended on moving gases. He died in Switzerland in 1974.
The Company
Tatra is the most significant of the Czechoslovakian auto manufacturers. Its heritage can be directly traced to a wagon shop opened in 1850 by Ignaz Schustala in Nesselsdorf, a Moravian town in the Kingdom of Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire. After Schustala’s death, the company was run by Hugo Fischer von Röslerstamm and was renamed Nesselsdorfer Waganbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft. Röslerstamm was fascinated by the motoring stories of Baron Theodor von Liebieg, so he acquired a Benz auto and engine in 1897. He called it the “Instructor,” and it was studied by his engineers—Edmund Rumpler, another named Sage, and Ledwinka, then an engineering student. Production problems with the first car, the “President,” resulted in the departure of Rumpler and Sage, leaving Ledwinka in charge of design and production. Ledwinka redesigned the problematic transmission and the car went into production. It even had some successes in racing. The car was very conventional despite being a design from some designers who would subsequently produce some very unconventional automobiles.
Ledwinka, who contributed to Tatra’s successes, left the company on two occasions but was always encouraged back. After his first absence, from 1902 to 1905, Ledwinka helped improve the cars Nesseldorfer was selling. The shape of the cars was fairly standard for the time, and he did not attempt to change that. His contributions were focused more on the engines of the company’s cars. In 1910, his Type S was powered by a 90-degree hemi, V4 engine producing 30 hp that was very profitable for Nesseldorfer. He followed that with an inline, 6-cylinder engine for the Type S and then an inline-4 for the Type T. The company had already branched out to commercial vehicles, and both the Type S and T were produced as both automobiles and trucks.
During the second of his absences, the “War to End All Wars” ended and one significant outcome was the creation of the country of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918. With that came the de-Germanization of the country. Nesselsdorf became Koprivnice, so a new name was sought for the company. It was finally decided to name it for the highest mountain range in Czechoslovakia, the Tatra Mountains. It gave the company nationalistic appeal and an image of strength and solidity.
Ledwinka returned in 1921 and was given full responsibility for the design of a new car while the newly named company produced a Type U, essentially a continuation of its pre-war automobiles. The result of Ledwinka’s efforts was the Tatra 11, with a tubular or torque-tube chassis, air-cooled engine and independent suspension. His innovative design was criticized as extreme, until 1925 when the cars took 1st and 2nd in the 1100-cc class of the Targa Florio race and won the Leningrad-Moscow-Tiflis-Moscow Reliability Trial overall. Ledwinka’s interesting chassis design soon lost favor to unibody chassis design, first used by Lancia and quickly adopted by many manufacturers. But the torque-tube chassis continued to be used by Tatra and a few manufacturers, most recently by Chevrolet for its C4 through C7 Corvettes.
Gradually, Ledwinka’s designs moved from the typically square shapes typical of the early 1930s to some that were a bit more aerodynamic—a bit more streamlined. The T31 of 1929 had that square shape but, by 1934, the T75 was showing some interesting streamlined elements in its design. These cars were popular, but Ledwinka’s next success came with his T57 line, which lasted in production until 1949. A variety of body styles were produced, including an open tourer and sedans that took on an increasingly more modern look.
It was in the 1930s when Ledwinka appears to have been most influenced by Jaray—whose design for a teardrop-shaped car was patented in 1921—and possibly Rumpler, who had gone on to design some oddly aerodynamic automobiles. The result was the Tatra Type V570, which Ledwinka designed in 1933. It was the test of a variety of his ideas, including air-cooled rear-engine drive, streamlining, innovative chassis design and independent suspension. Ledwinka had always been interested in producing a car for all people, and this appears to be his concept for that car. According to Ledwinka’s son, Erich, his father met with Adolf Hitler on several occasions about a “people’s car.” Hitler subsequently gave the project to Ferdinand Porsche rather than to Ledwinka. An early design by Porsche for Zundapp that preceded the VW shows some remarkable similarities to the V570.
The V570 never went into production, but it was the basis for his subsequent and very significant automobiles. In 1934, Ledwinka showed his first prototype of the automobile concept he had been developing for some time, the Tatra T77. The T77 was incredibly streamlined—both aesthetically and aerodynamically—for an intended production car of its time. Ledwinka may not have intended to design an Art Deco automobile, but he did. Its aerodynamics were helped by its smooth, rounded shape, recessed door handles, fender skirts over the rear wheels and prominent dorsal fin. It was powered by an aluminum, horizontally opposed, air-cooled, 8-cylinder engine mounted in the rear, driving the rear wheels, and producing 59 bhp. It displaced 3.0 liters and had a single overhead camshaft for each cylinder bank. It had Ledwinka’s backbone chassis, but the chassis was integral with the all-steel four-door body. Suspension was independent all around. Even with only 59 horsepower, the aero shape allowed the car to reach 94 mph.
The T77 was a step toward Ledwinka’s vision, but it wasn’t quite right. He produced a T77A within a year with a number of structural improvements, better engine cooling, a 3.4-liter engine, a third, centrally mounted headlight, and various detail improvements. Slow production meant that relatively few of the T77 and T77A automobiles were actually built and sold.
Ledwinka wasn’t done with the T77A, though. In 1936, his ultimate Tatras appeared. First was the T87. It had a shorter wheelbase than the T77, was lighter by 900 pounds, had larger windows and doors, and was even sleeker than its predecessor. The T87 had a rear mounted, air-cooled, 3-liter V8 engine with dual overhead camshafts on each engine bank. It was a very comfortable automobile and had a top speed of over 90 mph. The car was the ultimate streamliner; both its design and its engineering were groundbreaking. There had been streamliners before the Tatra, but the T87s were exceptional in their beauty and engineering innovation. Even though the T87 got an amazing 19 mpg at 60 mph, there was a need for a more economical version of the car. The result was the T97, which had an air-cooled, 4-cylinder engine mounted in the back. It would only go 81 mph.
Several interesting things happened after the German takeover of the Sudetenland. First, the T97, whose production began in 1938, was banned after the Germans took over Czechoslovakia in 1939—it seems it was too similar to the “People’s Car” then being developed by Porsche. Before the German takeover, Ledwinka sued Porsche over the design of the two cars, but the suit was dropped once the Germans were in control. The T97 had been seen as a key to the company’s fortunes, since it added a middle-market automobile to their line. Unfortunately, only 510 examples were ever built.
Second, Fritz Todt, the engineer of the autobahn, proclaimed that the T87 was the automobile for his autobahn. The result was that the Tatra T87 was one of the few cars produced throughout WWII. Finally, it appears that German staff officers liked the speed of the T87 and often commandeered them for their own use. But one fault of the Tatras resulted from the rear-mounted engine, which contributed to the car’s having a high polar moment of inertia and a high rear roll center. Under hard cornering, the car could suddenly oversteer, resulting in a big surprise for an unwary driver. Because too many of the German high command found themselves in crashed Tatras, Hitler supposedly put a ban on German personnel driving the T87. Violating the ban would result in the offender being reassigned to guard duty at a prison camp.
1938 Tatra T97 SN: 1838
The T97 was announced in 1936, but production didn’t start until late in 1937. It was very much like a scaled down T87. It had a 102.3-inch wheelbase compared to 112.2-inches for its big brother. The flat-4, single overhead cam engine had a displacement of 1749-cc. Its suspension was almost a duplicate of that of the T77—all-independent with transverse leaf springs with swing axles at the rear and single keystone-type arms in the front and hydraulic shocks on all corners. The only difference was that the springs were canted on the T97.
Another difference was the use of a welded unibody. The car had hydraulic brakes and rack and pinion steering and was a very modern automobile for 1938. The most visible differences between the T97 and the T87 were the lack of a third set of windows on each side, a missing center headlight and a flat windshield instead of the three-part windshield on the T97. Unless the two models were sitting side-by-side, most observers would have difficulty identifying which was which unless the engine was visible.
Our test car is part of the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum collection (www.tbauto.org) and is owned by museum founder Alain Cerf. Cerf’s emphasis in his collection is technology, and the Tatra was certainly advanced for its time. Tatras were on his list of cars to add to his collection, and he knew about this one. It was in the Czech Republic and was owned by a fellow who restored automobiles. Restoration was what it needed, since it was in bad shape. Cerf approached the owner about purchasing the car, and the owner agreed to sell it as long as he could restore the car in the Czech Republic for Cerf. The deal was done, and the car was restored by people who had worked at Tatra—it was a perfect restoration.
Driving Impressions
I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Fred Simeone of the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum for the September 2014 issue of this magazine. During that interview, Dr. Simeone explained why he included period road tests of his cars in his book, The Spirit of Competition. He said that he thought contemporary tests were important “because what bothers me the most now is you get a modern writer and they talk about ‘the gearbox is this’ and about the exhilaration, but you can tell it’s a modern guy who’s used to driving a modern car talking about this old car, and he’ll either say how wonderful it is because he can get it into gear, or he’ll say how primitive it is because he doesn’t know what cars were like in 1912. He’ll drive a Mercer Raceabout and couldn’t find out what all the fuss was about—the brakes were bad, it was hard on cornering, it has a different kind of shifting pattern, and it’s not easy to shift. So, why do they make such a fuss about a Mercer Raceabout? If he drove any other three-speed transmission 1913 car, and I mean any other, the Mercer was like a dream because it was light, it had a wide tread, it had a low center of gravity, it had a four-speed transmission when virtually everybody else had three-speed transmissions. It’s just a dream, but a modern driver can’t do that the way a driver who drove it at the time can. So that’s why we have so many contemporary road tests in there.” While he was too polite to wag his finger at me, I understood that I was, in his view, another “modern guy” who is likely to misrepresent the car he has driven.
I have kept Dr. Simeone’s criticism in mind when I do a profile, but the Tatra T97 was different. Except for a few details, it was like driving a much more modern car. I didn’t have to keep comparing it in my mind to other cars of the same vintage that I’ve profiled. When I was finished driving it, I had the feeling that I could have driven this car on the eight-hour trip home and felt no worse off than had I been in my 2013 hatchback.
Entering the car is easy. The rear-hinged front doors provide plenty of room for a middle-aged American to get in, and they close with a very nice “thunk.” The seats are comfortable, and the controls are obvious and easy to reach. It is right-hand drive, so there is a bit of adjustment needed in your head before you take off. The only issue for someone with big feet is the pedals; specifically, the brake and clutch pedal are close, so you have to be careful when going to shift or stop to ensure your foot is on the right one. Still, it only takes a couple minutes to familiarize yourself with the controls and get ready to start the car and go.
It was a test bed for some of Ledwinka’s most innovative ideas, and it certainly had an influence on the “people’s car” eventually designed by Ferdinand Porsche.
The key is similar to a BMW motorcycle; you push it in to energize the systems, then push the starter button to spin the starter. Also, like the BMW, turning the key after it is inserted turns on the lights. When you’re ready, put the transmission in first, release the clutch while giving it a bit of gas, and you’re off. Smooth! That’s the first impression. The ride is nice, even over the cracks and bumps of the roads near the museum and through a typical Florida retirement/second home community. The transmission is silky; shifts are easy with no graunches or snicks. The route allowed for some quick 90-degree turns and even a couple of U-turns. The car has a tight turning circle and handles flat. It has a nice feeling of being under control, not something I expected after the horror stories about the T87’s vices. But I didn’t really press it either. I suspect that if pushed it would require the same approach as other cars with the engine hanging out behind the rear wheels.
While the front bench seats are very comfortable, they don’t provide much lateral support, so the addition of seat belts was appreciated. The rear seats are a little tight for adults, not as bad as some coupes, but probably not as good as the longer T87. Storage is in a small trunk behind the rear seats and accessed from the interior of the car.
No surprise, this car attracts a lot of attention wherever it goes. People stare and wave; shooting the photos meant being patient and taking time to answer questions before shooing people out of the frame. But this car deserves attention. It is just an incredible automobile. It’s no rocketship, due to its size and 1749-cc engine, but it is a car I really could imagine driving a long distance in comfort. Hans Ledwinka was a genius.
familiar with the two models to identify them correctly.
Epilogue
After WWII, Czechoslovakia became a part of the Soviet Union. Under the Russians, Tatra was nationalized and ultimately allowed to produce only cars of over 1.5-liter displacement and trucks of over eight tons payload capacity. Subsequent cars gradually slid away from the design innovations of the T87 and T97 and became more conventional. It is too bad that Tatra could not continue to develop its innovative ideas in a free market.
Tatra stopped producing cars in 1998. Because of its debts, it was sold at auction in 2013. It is expected though that it will continue to exist and manufacture commercial vehicles.
adequate for adults.
Specifications
Body: Unit body on chassis
Chassis: Rigid backbone/torque tube
Suspension: Independent with transverse leaf springs and swing axles at the rear and single
keystone-type arms in the front.
Hydraulic shocks all around
Brakes: Drum, hydraulically actuated
Steering: Rack and pinion
Length: 4270 mm/168.1 inches
Wheelbase: 2600 mm/102.3 inches
Width: 1610 mm/63.4 inches
Height: 1450 mm/57.1 inches
Weight: 1150 kg/2540 pounds
Engine: Horizontally opposed 4-cylinder
Displacement: 1749 cc/106.7 cid
Bore/Stroke 75 mm/99 mm; 2.95 inches/3.9 inches
Horsepower: 40 hp/29.5 kw @ 3500 rpm
Compression: 5.9:1
Carburation: IKOV downdraft carburetor
