The Tatra 600, named the Tatraplan, was a rear-engined

large family car The D-segment is the 4th category of the European segments for passenger cars, and is described as "large cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "large family car" size class, and the present-day definition of the mid-size car category used ...

(

D-segment The D-segment is the 4th category of the European segments for passenger cars, and is described as "large cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "large family car" size class, and the present-day definition of the mid-size car category us ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

) produced from 1948 to 1952 by the Czech manufacturer Tatra. The first prototype was finished in 1946.

History

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Tatra continued its pre-war business of building passenger cars in addition to

commercial vehicle A commercial vehicle is any type of motor vehicle used for transporting goods or paying passengers. The United States defines a "commercial motor vehicle" as any self-propelled or towed vehicle used on a public highway in interstate commerce to ...

s and

military vehicle A military vehicle is any vehicle for land-based military transport and activity, including combat vehicles; both specifically designed for, or significantly used by military and armed forces. Most military vehicles require off-road capabiliti ...

s. The factory was nationalised in 1946 two years before the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

takeover. Although production of pre-war models continued, a new model, the Tatra 600 Tatraplan was designed in 1946-47 by Josef Chalupa, Vladimír Popelář, František Kardaus and

Hans Ledwinka Hans Ledwinka (14 February 1878 – 2 March 1967) was an Austrian automobile designer. Youth Ledwinka was born in Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria), near Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He started his career as a mechanic, a ...

. The name of the car celebrated the new Communist

planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, p ...

but also referred to aeroplane inspiration ('éroplan' means aeroplane in colloquial Czech). Tatra T600 Tatraplan

Streamlined Tatras * Tatra V570 ''1931, 1933'' * Tatra 77 ''1933-1938'' * Tatra 87 ''1936-1950'' * Tatra 97 ''1936-1939'' *Tatra 600 ''1946-1952'' * Tatra 603 ''1956-1975''

After two prototypes "Ambrož" (December 1946) and "Josef" (March 1947), the 600 went into mass production in 1948. In 1951, the state planning department decided that the Tatraplan should henceforth be built at the Skoda Auto plant in

Mladá Boleslav Mladá Boleslav (; german: Jungbunzlau) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 42,000 inhabitants. Mladá Boleslav is the second most populated city in the region and a major centre of the Czech automotive ind ...

, leaving Tatra to concentrate on truck assembly. This was quite unpopular with the workforce at both plants: as a result Skoda built Tatraplans for one year only before the model was discontinued in 1952. The Tatraplan had a

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

streamlined 6-seat

fastback A fastback is an automotive styling feature, defined by the rear of the car having a single slope from the roof to the tail. The kammback is a type of fastback style. Some models, such as the Ford Mustang, have been specifically marketed as f ...

saloon body with front

suicide door A suicide door is an Car door, automobile door hinged at its rear rather than the front. Such doors were originally used on Horse-drawn vehicle, horse-drawn carriages, but are rarely found on modern vehicles, primarily because they are perceived ...

s and a

drag coefficient In fluid dynamics, the drag coefficient (commonly denoted as: c_\mathrm, c_x or c_) is a dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the drag e ...

(Cd) of just 0.32.Martin Janik, ''Tatra'', Computer Press, Brno 2005, page 76 It was powered by an

air-cooled Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. In all combustion engines, a great percentage of the heat ge ...

flat-4-cylinder 1,952 cc rear-mounted engine. 6,342 were made, 2,100 of them in Mladá Boleslav. In 2010, in the UK, the Tatraplan won the '

Classic Car A classic car is an older car, typically 25 years or older, though definitions vary.While other languages, such as German and Dutch, may refer to classic cars as "oldtimers", this usage is unknown in English, where "old-timer" refers to an elder ...

of the Year' competition in the 1940s category.

Models

Tatra 107 Tatra may refer to: * Tatra Mountains, a mountain range in Slovakia and Poland ** Tatra County, an administrative division of Poland in the region of the Tatra Mountains ** Tatra National Park, Poland, a national park in Poland ** Tatra Nation ...

- predecessor of 600, produced from 1946–1947. *

Tatra 201 Tatra may refer to: * Tatra Mountains, a mountain range in Slovakia and Poland ** Tatra County, an administrative division of Poland in the region of the Tatra Mountains ** Tatra National Park, Poland, a national park in Poland ** Tatra National P ...

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

version of 600, four built (a pickup truck, a panel van, and two ambulances) in 1947. Unlike the 600, the 201 was front-engined. * Tatra 600 Diesel - similar to 600 but with 2.0L

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

, three prototypes built in 1949. * Tatra 601 Monte Carlo - a 2-door

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

based on the 600, one (possibly two) built in 1949. * Tatra 602 Tatraplan Sports - a

racing car Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organis ...

based on the 600, 2 built in 1949. *

Tatra 604 Tatra may refer to: * Tatra Mountains, a mountain range in Slovakia and Poland ** Tatra County, an administrative division of Poland in the region of the Tatra Mountains ** Tatra National Park, Poland, a national park in Poland ** Tatra National P ...

- smaller version of 600, one prototype built in 1954.

Notes

References

*Margolius, Ivan: 'Tatra T600 – Tatraplan', ''Architectural Design'', vol. 71, no. 5, September 2001, London, pp. 84–88. *Field, Ben: 'Smooth Operator', ''Classic Cars'' magazine, May 2010, pp. 88–92 *Margolius, Ivan and Henry, John G: ''Tatra - The Legacy of Hans Ledwinka'', SAF Publishing, Harrow 1990, *Margolius, Ivan and Henry, John G: ''Tatra - The Legacy of Hans Ledwinka'', Veloce Publishing, Dorchester 2015,

External links

* {{Tatra models 600 Cars powered by boxer engines 1950s cars Cars introduced in 1948 Rear-engined vehicles Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Mid-size cars Sedans