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Tatra's Junior Streamliner

Tatra's Junior Streamliner

Tatra's Junior Streamliner

  • Tatra's Junior Streamliner
  • Tatra's Junior Streamliner

At every stop, the unfamiliar
 shape of this regularly exercised 80-year-old generates impromptu conversation. A quarter of a century ago, pre-internet, the typical reaction in the UK was usually along 
the lines of “So, what on earth is it?”, but its driver is just as likely now to be treated to a brain dump from spotters who are keen to demonstrate an imagined grasp of Tatra history. A V8? The design Porsche plagiarised? Lethal? The ‘Czech secret weapon’, so dangerous German officers were banned from driving them? Production halted by the Nazis because of its similarity to the Volkswagen?

So, how seriously should we take all that? Long-term Tatra owner Ian Tisdale has an opinion, but you’ll have to pick up the latest issue of The Automobile to find out what it is...

Photographs by Nick Clements

Gepubliceerd:
vrijdag april 27th, 2018

Reacties

Michael Schlenger
27 April 2018, 11:22
As an avid reader of the Automobile, I found this meticulously researched article particularly worthwile, since it dispels the myth that Prof. Porsche (of all engineers!) "stole" the design of the Volkswagen "Beetle" from the Czechs. Very well done, indeed, gentlemen!
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Steve Diggins
27 April 2018, 04:45
These small Tatras were imported into Canada with dealers across the country. There was a dealer in my area and I saw them out on test rides. They didn't catch on I guess because they weren't as cute as a bug. In the 30's Ford of Britain sent over about 75 LHD Model Ys. to Canada probably to see if they would sell in North America. They did catch on and more British Fords soon followed.
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Ian Tisdale
29 April 2018, 17:00
Interesting recollections, Steve. The Tatras that you remember were not the pre-war T97, but post-war T600 Tatraplans with a similar layout and silhouette - a new design with a push-rod 2-litre engine and torsion-bar rear suspension. The promotion of those cars foundered due to political animosity. Czechoslovakia had embraced Communism by then and ownership of an unorthodox and very eye-catching 'Commie car' on your Canadian driveway would have had limited appeal. Canadian Tatra-owner John Long can bear witness to the fact that the last unsaleable consignment of those cars was pushed overboard in the ocean, and there's photographic evidence of the fish-like cars on the bottom, where leisure divers can still visit them.
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