This odd-looking vehicle is a 1950 Tatra T-600 Tatraplan, a
Czechoslovakian car collector Justin Pinchot found in Canada. It has an
air-cooled, rear-mounted engine. If that reminds you of the Volkswagen
Beetle you drove in the ’60s, here’s why:
Founded in 1850 as a manufacturer of horse-drawn coaches,
by 1899, Tatra was one of Europe’s leading automakers, producing a
sports car that reached 71 miles per hour. Then, in 1921, an Austrian
named Hans Ledwinka was named Tatra’s chief designer. Ledwinka was
something of a rock star among European automobile designers between the
wars. “Hitler had dinner with Ledwinka many times when he was touring
Czechoslovakia prior to the war,” Pinchot says. “‘That’s the car I want
for my roads’, Hitler told his designer, Ferdinand Porsche [at the time,
Porsche's company was still a design firm; its famous 911 would not be
released until 1964]. It was very well known that Hitler and Porsche
stole the idea for the Volkswagen Beetle from Tatra. In fact, after the
war, Germany paid Tatra three-million Deutschmarks to settle a lawsuit
Tatra had filed in the 1930s.”
But there are differences. The Tatraplan has front suicide doors, a
luggage compartment between the riders and the engine, and pop-up
semaphore turn signals! Read more about this interesting car at
Collector's Weekly.
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