Ignác Šustala (1822–1891), founder of the company in Kopřivnice, Moravia, started the production of horse-drawn vehicles in 1850. In 1891 he branched out into railroad cars manufacture, naming the company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft, and employed Hugo Fischer von Roeslerstamm as technical director in 1890. After the death of Šustala, von Roeslerstamm took over running the company and in 1897 he bought a Benz automobile. Using this for inspiration the company made its first car, the Präsident, which was exhibited in 1897 in Vienna. Orders were obtained for more cars and under the direction of a new young engineer Hans Ledwinka (1878–1967) ten improved cars were made.

The first car to be totally designed by Ledwinka came in 1900 with the Type A with rear mounted 2714 cc engine and top speed of 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph), 22 were made. This was followed by the Type B with central engine in 1902 but then Ledwinka left the company to concentrate on steam engine development. He returned in 1905 and designed a completely new car, the Type S with 3308 cc 4 cylinder engine. Production was badly hit in 1912 with a 23-week strike and Hugo Fischer von Roslerstam left the company.

Tatra concept

After the World War I Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau was renamed Kopřivnická vozovka, and in 1919 the name Tatra was given to the car range. Leopold Pasching took over control and in 1921 Hans Ledwinka returned again to develop the revolutionary Tatra 11.

The new car, launched in 1923 featured a rigid backbone tube with swinging semi-axles at the rear giving independent suspension. The engine, front mounted, was an air cooled two cylinder unit of 1056 cc. The T 11 was replaced in 1926 by the similar T 12 which had four wheel brakes. A further development was the 1926 T 17 with a 1,930 cc water-cooled six- cylinder engine and fully independent suspension. In 1927 the company was renamed Závody Ringhoffer-Tatra a.s..

Prewar streamliners

Tatra's specialty was luxury cars of a technically advanced nature, going from aircooled flat-twins to fours and sixes, culminating (briefly) with the OHC 6 litre V12 in 1931. In the 1930s, under Austrian engineer Hans Ledwinka, his son Erich and German engineer Erich Übelacker and protected by a high tariff and absence of foreign assemblers, Tatra then began building advanced, streamlined cars after obtaining licences from Paul Jaray, which started in 1934 with the large Tatra T77, the world's first production aerodynamic car. The fastback T77's drag coefficient of 0.212 is rarely bettered even by the sleekest of modern cars. It featured (as did almost all subsequent big Tatras) a rear-mounted, air-cooled V8 engine, which was in technical terms very sophisticated for the time.

Ledwinka discussed his ideas with Ferdinand Porsche who used many Tatra design features in the 1938 Kdf-Wagen, later known as the VW Beetle. This is particularly evident when compared with the smaller T97 model which had a rear-mounted, air-cooled, flat-4 engine and rounded body styling. Tatra immediately started legal action, but the matter was not resolved until 1961 when Volkswagen was ordered to pay 3,000,000 Deutsche Marks in damages.

War years

After the 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Tatras continued in production, largely because Germans liked the cars. Many German officers met their deaths driving 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.

Postwar management

The factory was nationalised in 1946 two years before the Communist Party came to power and renamed to Tatra Národní Podnik. Although production of prewar models continued, a new model, the Tatra T600 Tatraplan was designed—the name celebrating the new Communist planned economy and the aeroplane inspiration (Colloq. Czech: eroplan). It went into production in 1948. In 1951, the state planning department decided that the Tatraplan should henceforth be built at the Skoda plant in Mladá Boleslav, leaving Tatra free to concentrate on trucks, buses and railway equipment.

The Tatra T603

Tatra T603s were built until 1975, a twenty-year era as one of Communism's finest cars. Numerous improvements were made over this time, but not all the new cars built in this period were actually new. When a new Tatra replaced an old, the old vehicle was returned to the factory. There, it was upgraded to modern condition, refinished, dubbed new and sent out again as a putatively new vehicle to replace another older Tatra. This makes it hard to trace the history of surviving vehicles.

1970s makeover—the Tatra T613

In 1968 a replacement was developed; the Tatra T613. It was styled by the Italian styling house of Vignale and was a more modern, less rounded shape. It was not until 1973 that any were actually produced by the factory, and volume production did not begin until the following year. Although the layout remained the same, the body was all new, as was the engine, being equipped with four overhead camshafts, a higher capacity (3495 cc) and an output close to 165 bhp (123 kW; 167 PS). In addition, it had been moved somewhat forward for improved balance. These cars were built in five series and several modifications until 1996. It is a tribute to Vignale's styling that they did not look dated until rather late in that time period. Over 11,000 cars were built, slowing to a trickle of but a few dozen a year towards the end as Tatras began to seem more and more outdated.

source: wikipedia.org