Frydek Mistek: The Tatra Museaum - I think Ken likes Tatras - Hunting down Ancient Tractors between Dusseldorf and Warsaw

September 16, 2014

Frydek Mistek: The Tatra Museaum - I think Ken likes Tatras

From Ken

Yesterday we got to to Koprovinice the home of Zatopec and Tatra. It was only 46km but really hard - low range all day and lots of pushing. Some difficulties with route finding so at the end we really felt we had had a hard day.

The museum hotel was fine and in the evening I walked along to part of the factory and saw two new trucks on display. they make only all wheel drive trucks with all wheels independently sprung. They make some with Cummins and DAF engines (6 Cylinder I think) and some with their own air cooled engines. These have roller bearings and built-up crankshafts (a la Ferdinand Porsche design pre-war Auto Union racing cars)

Today dawned very misty so it was good that we had the museum to go to until nearly 1am - it hadn't lifted then

The museum was great - quite a bit of german and English and the exhibits beautifully displayed. Th first car - President was made in 1897 - the original is in the Prague Museum and this one was a replica. They made very advanced cars in the early years of the century- OHC etc but by 1920 Hans Ledwinka settled on a design featuring air cooled motors, tubular backbone frame and swing axle independent rear rear suspension. By 1929 they were dependent all round with double transverse leaf springs at the front keeping the front wheels parallel and vertical but swing axle rear. He even designed a limousine in 1930 all 4 wheel independently sprung with water cooled OHC 6 cylinder engine. They were using hemispherical cross flow OHC heads in the late 20s.

The first rear engine car was made in 1934 and it was also the first streamlined car in the world. A year or so later came the classic streamlined aircooled V8 cars which were continued pretty much until the production ceased. Thanks to Neville Chamberlain under the Germans they put out a range of amazing aircooled tank engines - V8, V12 and W18 - all on display.

There were many other models but car production petered out in 1990. I attribute that to political interference and blundering. Ledwinka who was born in Austria but was not a Nazi was jailed for 5 years for collaborating in design work with the Nazis - he never returned to the company. Ferdinand Porsche born in what is now the Czech Republic was a Nazi Party member and certainly collaborated with them. He serve 6 to 12 months.

I took lots of photos. Todays trucks have most of the Ledwinka features - all independent,tubular back bone frame and some air cooling. On todays ride I must have seen 20 working Tatra trucks so I hope they survive.

One interesting exhibit is the prototype that looks exactly like the Porsche designed VW Beetle. It is rear engined, air cooled, all independent. Tatra sued and were eventually paid by VW for patent violation. In fact Porsche and Ledwinka knew each other and their work well - and indeed Hitler knew them both well and I think they picked up ideas from each other.

Swing axle rear suspension has been used successfully on a number of small cars eg VW Beetle, Fiat 500 and 600, Hillman Imp with only a hint of unstable handling. When used on faster heavier cars there have been serious problems including Autounion, Rear engine V8 Tatras and the Rear engined Chev Corvair - Ralf Naiders ' Unsafe at any speed'

The bones of a 1930l light truck showing the tubular backbone, rear swing axles and air cooled engine at the front

It pays to get a good look! This is the prototype so similar to a VW Beelle

This Tatra truck won the Paris Dakar Race. Tatra have won it 6 times

There was also a display about Emil Zatopek who came from here and won many Olympic medals including the 5000m, 10000m and Marathon at the Helsinki Olympics

4km out of town we come to a Tatra truck hard at work

Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 2,426 km (1,507 miles)

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