The VW Bug’s Rare and Quirky Czech Mate

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.