Museum Classic: 1946 Tatra 87 – Meet My Hero

It had to happen one day. I just never expected it would take place 9000km away from Bohemia. Yes, Tatra87 finally found and photographed a T87 – perhaps the only one of its kind in Japan – at the Toyota Automobile Museum. Much rejoicing was experienced of course, though conditions were not exactly optimal: the Tatra sat in a relatively dark corner, could not be shot from certain angles and my smartphone’s camera was less than stellar. But one cannot look gift heroes in the grille.

And yes, there is a tiny grille on the T87. The engine’s in the tail but the oil radiator is in the nose. But you already knew that. Let’s brush past the banalities and get into the weeds a bit…

It all started in 1850 as a carriage and railcar concern based in Nesseldorf, a small town in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s province of Moravia. Automobile production started there in 1897. In 1920, the town became known as Kopřivnice, the country Czechoslovakia and the firm’s cars and trucks took the name Tatra, a mountain range in northern Slovakia.

The thing about Tatra, even prior to the name change, was their reputation for excellent build quality and commitment to technical innovation. This was chiefly due to the influence of Hans Ledwinka (1878-1967, seen above sans hat greeting Czechoslovak president Tomáš Masaryk), who joined the firm just as it opened its automobile department and became its head engineer in 1906. Save for a stint at Steyr from 1916 to 1921, Ledwinka would be with Tatra right through to 1945, usually to be found in his office directly on the shop floor.

By 1930, Tatra were looking at producing a small rear-engined “people’s car,” following Paul Jaray’s work on aerodynamics. The ensuing V570 prototype, designed by Ledwinka and Erich Übelacker, was the first step towards a revolutionary line of cars that were anything but proletarian.

In parallel with the V 570, Tatra were working on a large V8-powered saloon. The larger car showed more promise, as it could be put in small-scale production for profit much more readily than the smaller one. Thus the Tatra 77 was launched in March 1934, initially with a 60hp 3-litre V8 (top photos). After a run of about 105 cars, a substantially re-worked Type 77a appeared in late 1935 (bottom photos), featuring a 3.4 litre V8 producing 75hp and a revised body now featuring three headlights.

The T87 was launched in 1937, but sales only really got going in 1938 – just as things were getting a mite complicated for Czechoslovakia on the geopolitical front. The Type 77 / 77a had been a successful proof of concept, but Ledwinka and Übelacker wanted to start again, pretty much from scratch, to make the streamlined Tatra a true production car. This meant an all-steel monocoque structure, a new V8, revised suspension and a more rational use of space, resulting in a shorter car overall with the same amount of passenger room.

Let’s start with the engine. It was a V8 all right, but a pretty singular one. Air-cooled, only displacing 2958cc but with hemi heads and overhead cams, this little wunderkind was made of magnesium alloy and produced 75hp (some contemporary brochures claim 72hp) and mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox. Not a massive output, but thanks to the slippery body, enough for this pretty large five-seater to reach 160kph – a top speed worthy of a sports car in the late ‘30s.

The steel body was a great improvement over the T77’s wood-framed affair, though T87s did keep employing wood for their doors. The front suspension (above) featured twin transverse leaf springs; the infamous swing axle rear end omitted the T77’s full transverse leafs in favour of short longitudinal cantilevered ones, but this did not cure the car’s well-deserved reputation for twitchy handling.

Brakes were hydraulic and steering was by rack and pinion, making the Tatra a truly avant-garde machine for 1938 – or 1948, come to that. But it’s the car’s advanced aerodynamics, which includes a smoothed underside, that took it to the very peak of modernity. Many numbers float about, but it seems a 1:1 scale wind tunnel test of a T87 yielded a Cd of 0.36 – for comparison, the VW Beetle scored a 0.48…

Despite the gathering clouds of war, Tatra sold these in fairly impressive numbers. The country was annexed purely and simply in 1939, but T87 production carried on unabated, as the Czech streamliner had no equivalent anywhere and many friends in high places. Famously, this included Adolf Hitler himself, though he had been a Tatra convert well before the T87 showed up. And equally famously, Germany’s high command ordered that their officers were to avoid driving these, as quite a few accidents took place. Overly enthusiastic military men and tail-heavy streamliners don’t mix.

By 1941, the car was even advertised and sold from the factory with a Notek blackout light in place of the central headlamp. Production was only halted in 1943-44, but after Germany surrendered in May 1945, the Tatra works went back to manufacturing their star product. This was to be without Hans Ledwinka’s supervision though: he was put of trial, mainly for having been too compliant with the Germans. After a few years in jail, he eventually left Czechoslovakia and settled in Munich.

The immediate post-war era was to be the T87’s golden years, really. The majority of cars would remain in their home country, but a substantial portion were exported as well. European countries on both sides of the nascent Iron Curtain received their share, but some Tatras went as far afield as Brazil, Egypt, Canada and South Africa. Post-1945 cars can be identified by the central headlamp, which was smaller initially but became identical to the outboard items after the war.

In late 1947, Tatra revamped the T87’s front end quite substantially, perhaps not for the better. Czech aficionados call these the “pot belly” cars. Some were even produced without the central headlight, as we can see above, giving the T87 more of a family resemblance with the new 2-litre T600. The bumpers were also made a lot bulkier and rounder, compared to the flat items used up to that point. The Toyota Museum’s example is advertised as a 1948 model, but I have my doubts (for the reasons just stated). It’s more of a 1945-47 car, as far as I can tell.

I’m not at all sure about that upholstery either, to be honest. But it’s more than made up by that superb dash, which looks perfectly original or very well restored. Early cars (1938-40) had the speed gauge in the centre and a different overall layout. This more spread-out look with a big clock for the front passenger was an improvement.

Acres of room back here. The floor does have a small hump – not for a transmission, more of a means to strengthen the unit body, as well as to serve as a recessed conduit for several systems (gear change linkage, accelerator cable, oil and brake fluid pipes, etc) located up front. It was also a remnant of the backbone chassis favoured by Ledwinka since the early ‘20s and still very much in use in Tatra trucks.

The T87 was allowed to carry on for a while, but Tatra was now a fully State-owned entity, so it was only a matter of time before some meddlesome bureaucrat drafted a document to “rationalize” vehicle production in Czechoslovakia. The plan was implemented from 1948 onward and Tatra were allocated the duty of manufacturing heavy trucks, trams and railcars, whereas automobiles would be the purview of Škoda. That meant the T600, launched in 1947, would migrate to the Škoda works and that production of the T87 would have to cease. Which it did, in late 1950.

Not all sources agree on exact production numbers, but by and large it seems just over 3000 units were made, of which a small majority (about 1700) were assembled after 1945. Considering the extremely troubled time period this took place in, and the fact that these were rather exclusive V8-powered limousines that looked like something from another world, it is surprising that Tatra managed to sell so many of these.

Still, 3000 isn’t a whole lot and I cannot say exactly when I had last laid eyes on a T87. I believe I saw one in my early teens, probably at the Schlumpf Museum, that left an impression on me, but it’s a bit hazy. I went to Prague in 1996 and remember seeing a lot of curbside Tatras there – mostly 603s and 613s, but also at least one T600. But the T87 was always elusive, something to be seen in books and magazines. I just needed to be patient and move to Japan. This was the only Eastern European car in the whole Toyota collection, so I do commend them on their flawless taste.

My next wish would be to see one outdoors, and possibly to sit in it. Riding in one would be the ultimate thrill, but driving one would probably just feel nerve-racking. Meeting your heroes? It’s a wonderful thing; I highly recommend it. Putting them on the roof, on the other hand, sounds a lot less idyllic.

 

Related posts:

 

Automotive History: Hans Ledwinka’s Revolutionary Tatras, by PN

Step-By-Step Instructions On How To Flip A Tatra T87 at 20 MPH, by PN

Museum Classics: “The Shape of Speed” – A Sublime Collection of Streamlined Cars, by PN

Museum Classics: The DAF Museum’s Tatra Experience – Part One, The Cars, by Johannes Dutch

An Illustrated History Of Automotive Aerodynamics – Part 1 (1899 – 1939), by PN