Tatra cars were great once upon a time

HN TODAY

Tatra cars were great once upon a time

If the early years of the Mladá Boleslav auto factory are associated with the names Laurin & Klement, then the beginning of automaking in Tatra Kopřivnice, North Moravia, has to be closely linked to the name Baron Theodor Liebig.
Baron Liebig, himself one of the first sports car pilots, was a great admirer and promoter of motoring and motoring sports. It was he who, at the turn of the century, had the idea of making "carriages without horses" in the already famous Kopřivnice coach factory.
It was 1897 when construction of the first car began. Baron Liebig's advised a standard four-passenger stanhope Mylord be used as the base. Getting the thing to go was a problem then. Baron Liebig suggested using a product of the famous Benz company, which met all Tatra demands and provided the fledgling automaker with a gasoline engine. The engine was a horizontal four-stroke two-cylinder model cooled with water, 6.6 horsepower. The gears were in the back of the car under the seat. The first cars used up to ten times more water than gasoline. A toggle chain was used to transfer the engine's drive from transmission housing in the 1100 mm diameter powered rear wheels. The front wheels turned on vertical shanks, a system which is still used.
The car had an unusual gear shift design. There was no steering wheel: Instead, handlebars were used to steer. Gears were shifted by leaning the whole steering bar with handle bars mounted on it forwards or backwards. The front tires were protected by a bumper.
When construction was finished in May of 1898, the car was given its name - the Präsident. The best times at the Kopřivnice factory, the era of automaking, had begun. The Präsident was presented in public for the first time May 22, 1898. That same year in Vienna, it was unveiled at an international exhibition dedicated to Emperor Francis Joseph's 50th anniversary.
Advertising, in the form of a drive cross country, came even before the exhibition. The ride started in Kopřivnice on May 21 and ended in Vienna the next day. Kopřivnice Director Hugo Fisher and Baron Liebig were among the passengers who went the 328 kilometers in 14.5 hours.
The Präsident was given to the Austrian Automobille Club after the exhibition as a training car. Now, the original Präsident is parked in the Czech National Technical Museum in Prague.
The first of Tatra's famous trucks was also made in 1898. Load capacity of the heavy duty vehicle was 2.5 tons. It had three gears and could go 20 km/hour. It used 4 kg of gasoline per hour and was able to use 12 grade fuel. It was powered by two water-cooled two-cylinder Benz engines located behind the rear axle. It had an 8.8 kW or 12 horsepower engine.
A copy of the first Tatra truck, made at the end of the 1970s according to original plans, is displayed in the Kopřivnice Regional Museum.
More than 65 years have passed since the first commercially produced car in the world with a self-contained body of combined construction without footboards was presented in public. The Tatra 77 was given an eight-cylinder air-cooled engine behind the rear axle. The car, designed by engineers Erich Ubelacker and Erich Ledwinka (the son of another brilliant Tatra car designer Hans Ledwinka), was named one of the top 100 cars of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, the glory days of Kopřivnice passenger cars are gone. Since there was no demand for cars bearing this label, Tatra company management decided to stop production. What a pity. On the other hand, making four, five or ten cars a year would be extremely bad business, just an ineffective pomposity.
And what about those famous Tatra trucks? They are still successfully surviving on the market. But the fight for survival is exhausting, mainly because of old debts. The firm would welcome help. Even the state should show some interest. After all, it would be good for the Czech Republic, because world-known Tatra trucks have helped to build the reputation of the Czech Republic abroad as well as any other exportable product has done.

Petr Melničuk
(HN na víkend, Page 1)