The Joy of Driving: A Personal Experience with a 1938 Tatra Motorcar

As I sit behind the wheel of my 1938 Tatra motorcar, I am filled with a sense of nostalgia and wonder. This unusual car has become an extension of myself, and I must say that it's been a wild ride. The moment I stepped into this vehicle, I knew I was in for something special. The short front overhang gave me a feeling of openness, allowing me to see everything in front of me like never before. The three windows and the tri-corner design were a masterclass in aerodynamics, creating a sense of stability and control that was unparalleled.

One of the things that struck me most about this car was its comfort. Despite being built during the Great Depression era, it was clear that every aspect of its design had been carefully considered to provide a smooth ride. The seats, the dashboard, everything seemed to be designed with the driver in mind. As I settled into the seat, I felt a sense of relaxation wash over me. This car was like a comfortable chair on wheels, and I couldn't wait to take it out for a spin.

The driving experience was nothing short of phenomenal. The steering was incredibly light, almost as if it was one of those old Chrysler power steering units from the 1950s. It was so easy to turn that I found myself laughing with joy as I navigated through tight corners. And when it came time to brake, the central lubrication system kicked in, giving me a feeling of smoothness and control that was unmatched. I hit the brakes hard, and the car responded like a modern engine, revving up to 4,500 rpm or maybe even higher.

The Tatra motor itself was a marvel of engineering. With its 2.9 liters of displacement, it was big by European standards, but it produced an astonishing amount of torque that made this car incredibly responsive. I didn't push it too hard, but when I did, the power was evident in every acceleration. It's no wonder that Paul Géas, the aerodynamicist behind Tatra's design, is credited with designing some of the most iconic cars of all time.

As I drove through the streets, people couldn't help but stare at this unusual car. Some thought it was a custom job or even a replica, but I knew better. I had done my research and found out that this car was indeed a 1938 Tatra, and I felt a sense of pride knowing that I owned something truly unique.

The past decade has seen a resurgence in interest for these classic cars, with some models becoming highly valuable. It's no surprise, given the innovative designs and engineering that went into creating them. From W.O. Bentley to Duesenberg, Bugatti, Hans Ledwinka, and Ferdinand Porsche, there were countless geniuses who shaped the automotive world.

I must confess that I'm a fan of one-man visions, where an individual's passion and creativity can lead to something truly remarkable. Women in engineering were relatively rare during the early 20th century, but women like Mary Barra at MGM and others have made significant contributions to the industry.

The Tatra motorcar is a testament to this one-man vision. Hans Ledwinka designed it with precision and care, creating an engine that was both efficient and powerful. When I talk about Gordon Murray's F1 McLaren, people often say, "He's just a designer." But when you see what he's done with the F1, it's clear that his attention to detail is unmatched.

The unique combination of design elements in this car makes it unlike anything else on the road today. The rear-engine layout, paired with its V8 engine and longer wheelbase, creates a driving experience that's both thrilling and comfortable. It's like a Volkswagen Beetle with a V8, minus the reliability issues, of course!

As I drive away from the camera, I feel grateful for this unusual car that has brought so much joy to my life. The pandemic may have changed our world, but it's also given me the chance to appreciate the beauty of classic cars like mine. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be driving a Tatra motorcar, and you'll experience the thrill of its unique design for yourself.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand this is probably the greatest car no one has ever heard of even real car guys i bring it up and i go magnesium v8 hemi overhead cam no no never heard of it don't know what you're talking about welcome to another episode of jaylon's garage pandemic edition once again i'm in my uh very quiet garage and uh with a very fascinating automobile this is the 1938 tatra t87 uh one of the most unusual one of the most brilliant cars of all time you know what's funny this is a rear engine car it is a v8 it is air-cooled it is 2.9 liter has a hemi head in it it's got a four-speed transmission and the block is cast magnesium for light weight uh you know it's funny here in america we all go crazy for the tucker you know the tuckers sell for well over two million dollars someone the average one's about a million five and certainly a nice car and a fascinating car but this predates it by 10 years and it was a much more finished automobile you know the tucker nothing against the tucker but it used somebody else's engine a franklin aircraft engine to use the transmission from the auburn cord and almost they built what 51 i think every one was a prototype tatra built these as sedans very dependable these cars got 20 miles per gallon at 60 miles an hour which today doesn't seem like a whole lot but back in the day when you had a big car like this six to nine miles per gallon was the norm and the fact that this would get 20 miles per gallon which is pretty amazing and with the aerodynamics when you get off the throttle at this at 60 it almost feels like freewheeling because it's cutting through the air so efficiently and the coefficient of drag in the wind tunnel was 0.24 and on the finished production model with all the stuff on it and you know people ended in windows and everything it was .36 which was amazing which was just unbelievable you got that he had that big fin in the back for directional stability the vehicle has about 38 at the front so it's very lightweight when i open the hood you'll see you have the gas tank up here plus two spare tires to kind of weigh down the front a little bit the advantage is you can really drive it with one finger these were built in czechoslovakia the designer was a man named hans ludwinka just a brilliant engineer hanzo winker was a contemporary of ferdinand porsche porsche of course developed the volkswagen but actually hanzo winker was one of the leading lights behind it uh partial would say that lewinka was looking over his shoulder and he was looking over to winker's shoulder and when they went to court and won he was awarded whatever the german current three million deutsche marks whatever way he didn't ever get to collect it he didn't have a very good lawyer what had happened was when the nazis took over uh lewinka was forced to work for them as many people in germany were and when the soviet union put him on trial he wound up doing six years in prison uh rather sad story uh released in 1951's filed his lawsuit won but never collected anything and then died i think somewhat penniless in 67 but he was a brilliant brilliant uh brilliant designer and engineer this body was designed by paul gerais and who was one of the leading aerodynamicists of the period he uh he was the guy that designed the graph zeppelin that was his deal and this is i think one of the first truly aerodynamic automobiles it is just a fascinating car to drive even though it's 1938 it really feels like a car from i don't know the early 60s it handles well well let's put that in perspective it handles it differently you know because of the swing axle uh we all know the trouble with volkswagen and corvair's with the swing axle uh if you run 40 pounds of pressure in the rear and 22 in the front you're fine but these gained quite a reputation because when germany invaded czechoslovakia and took over the tatra factory these were luxury cars and these were commandeered by the ss and the high command and they were so fast and so deceptively quick that a lot of the a lot of the officers would get on the autobahn come off the exit at high speed roll them you know the wheel would tuck under and they'd go off just as you would in an early porsche because they didn't know to stay on the throttle through the corner you know they'd back off and the wheel would tuck under and i think the first week they lost seven commanding nazi officers and hitler said that's it no more tantras i don't want any my people drive just leave them by the side of the road don't bring them back to germany just leave them there and uh i think in the first week these actually killed more nazis than the czechoslovakian army is not an insult it's just one of those stories that i sort of enjoy but uh yeah so the car is a bit of a hero in that sense uh but a fascinating fascinating car we'll go for a ride in a little bit and you'll see but i'll take you through it and show you some of the elements of it it has four wheel hydraulic brakes you know nowadays we live in a world where almost all information is shared universally if there's a breakthrough in germany and suspension design that we learned about here there's a breakthrough here they learn about it in france or italy wherever whereas hansel winker was working in czech slovakia sort of on the other side of the tatra mountains so he would he just did his own thing engineering wise design wise this doesn't really resemble any other car uh there's a story that hans and winker had a cousin i think his name was breer he worked for chrysler and the airflow is reminiscent of this but when you look at the wheels on the toucha and the wheels on my 34 chrysler info it almost looks like the same wheel so maybe there's some truth there but it's one of those rumors that yeah you don't really know i like the window set up here it looks like one of those ford uh what was it the tri-motor the aircraft you know and it had the three windows in front uh it's a four-seater you have a sunroof it's fascinating because you have your rear seating compartment here then you have a firewall then you have a luggage compartment then you have another firewall and then you have the engine so the engine is so far back no fumes get in the car no noise gets in the car it's all sort of behind you and you're sitting way up front here and because the weight distribution with only 38 in the front you can really steer it with one finger it almost feels like power steering from the 50s you go how could this be so light when it's moving that's why they uh have two spare tires up front and the jack and everything just to get a little more weight over the front wheels once you learn how to drive it it's fine it's really a wonderful cruising car this car is about it was 70 70 to 75 horsepower from the factory this one we rebuilt it we did new pistons so then we dynoed it and we got 85 horsepower out of it so we got another 10 horsepower using a more modern carburetor but other than that that's the only quote resto mod thing we did we just changed that didn't need to change the brakes quite powerful suspension was great um everything on it is well here let's start with the front of course unique and you have three headlights which is uh unusual certainly uh the center one does not turn it's just a third headlight now we put these two straps on here because bob who since passed away one day he said let me check it for you he left this unlocked i went down the road the whole hood blew up so i'm just just going blind with the hood mashed over the windshield and just slowly got to pull over the side of the road got the hood down straightened a little bit and got back here and then we we fixed it but yeah that was uh so we said you know something let's put these straps on here so that doesn't happen again so let's open this up your horns as you can see are outside the car which actually makes perfect sense because you could really hear them you know so many times they put the horn under the hood and you hear it in the car fine but not that well outside well as you can see i only have one spare tire in here i didn't feel the need for two i usually keep the tank pretty full so that keeps the front end down a little bit we added a new oil cooler this is the oil cooler here these lines run all the way to the back of the car and it works very well you've got a pretty good oil capacity in this thing uh so it's always circulating and it because and the other cool thing is the oil cooler is far away from the engine you know a lot of modern cars the oil cooler is right there so it's also absorbing heat from the engine whereas this it stays way out in front you know engine obviously in the back so the oil just gets nothing but cool air coming through there this is your gas tank here this little what we have here that little reservoir what the car has is a central lubricating system you've got a pedal on the floor and they say every 70 miles or a couple of times or whatever it is you just hit the pedal a few times and it shoots oil or lubricant grease rather to all the lubricating points of the car so that's that's kind of cool as i mentioned before the two horns and your spare tire right there okay your actual trunk is in front of the engine compartment but let's put this back down let's uh fasten that there we go there we are you always want to put these on so the hood does not fly off again okay it's a unique looking car nothing else on the road people just freak out when you go buy them in this thing i think it's some kind of custom car or batmobile or something you know come on let's go around to the rail i'll show you the engine compartment this is probably the most controversial side of the car because of this huge fin for directional stability it actually works although on a windy day when you get those crosstals on the freeway you can feel the backhand move a little bit with this if it's blowing really hard uh your rear view mirror you have a window and then you see through these slats and everybody talks about the lamborghini mural you know had the slats weren't they the first ones well no this actually had it first uh rear vision is not great that's why we put the side mirrors on there nice chrome bumpers a lot of air but here let's open it up all right here's something interesting what you have right over here i've just got these wires see those two lock plugs in the firewall but in czechoslovakia gas stations were few and far between so the idea was every time you sold the car you had to sell it with some spare parts in the car in case your owner needed them most of the time they just put spark plugs in it sometimes they leave a piston or a connecting rod you know like you're going to fix it on the road uh but that's what it was and that's why that's there for no other reason than it was requirement back in the day that you had to have spare parts with the car when you sold it to the customer uh there's the weber carburetor we put on that originally was a solex cast magnesium just brilliant just brilliant very lightweight air cooled your fan is buried down underneath there and these slats here depending on whether it's hot or cold you open them and close them to direct more cool air into the motor or to get hot air out but it tells you in the winter move the slants one way and the summer moving the other way a very clean design and it's a v8 that always freaks people out they expect to see some little four cylinders or something but it's a 2.9 hemi head as i said a brilliant design and just a wonderful wonderful motor and of course air cooled so you never have any problems with you know well freezing or water or anything like that you know it's brilliant check your oil right here uh we did pistons on this we used the original rods they were good we had them magnaflux and checked they were fine uh george swift you know our chief mechanic here did a beautiful job putting this engine together um he's got gray hair now and he's like this but that's okay because the engine is uh is good but uh when it's ever running i always go by george's house look george is still running and he's very happy about that but as you can see you've got air ducts coming in on the side so it's always fun this never overheats on me i you know i have friends that have tatras and they they drive them all over the world through the desert whatever and they're they're fine they're fine so there's your coil it's your ignition everything here is as it was in 1938 we haven't modified anything other than just getting a more modern uh carburetor here's your air cleaner right here and that's pretty much it for the engine compartment come on let's take a look inside the car put that down there on show the inside these really were luxury automobiles i'm sitting in the back seat now the front seat is all the way back because i got long legs and i've got plenty of room here and it's quite comfortable i mean the fact that this got 20 miles per gallon was pretty amazing back in the day and right behind me right here is your luggage compartment these seats come forward you see this opens up here and then you have this luggage department here then you have a rear window there that goes to the engine compartment so you can see why it stays relatively quiet in here i haven't been back here a long time there's nothing in there this shuts and then it has just these sort of sliding pieces here and you have another little window here so it's not claustrophobic and a huge just an enormous sunroof so it's you have magazine pockets back here as well so it's actually quite a pleasant place to be and i love this green leather so that's pretty neat this is all the original interior in the car as well um extremely well made automobile and not cheap i don't know the exact price but uh certainly equal i think to any american cars of the period buick chrysler any of the high-end stuff that we had cadillac i mean this was just a completely different way of thinking this is the ultimate aerodynamic car in fact there aren't many automobiles today that have a coefficient of drag as good as this one you probably have to go to a pre or some one of those cars to match it and considering it's almost what 80 years earlier that's uh that's pretty amazing because wind tunnel technology was in its infancy so pretty cool but all right come on let's get in the front seat now and you have little ashtrays and all the doors well hop in the front as he got suicide doors in the front although i don't believe any manufacturer ever used the term suicide door quite spacious you got a big sun roof right here goes all the way back i mean it's it's really fantastic and i love these three windows i you know something about a split windshield i always like it i don't know why although you know the 57 chrysler was the first one to have the total wrap-around windshield where they could bend the glass but these look kind of cool because you feel like you're in some kind of early aircraft you have a speedometer and which turns the other way it goes this direction which is weird because you get in it and you go what you know and then of course you got air temperature or similar head temperature i guess amps oil pressure uh fuel and of course you have a clock right here uh four speed you have this lever on the floor right here i'll press it a couple of times that shoots lubricant to all the chassis points again very comfortable leather seats ashtray glove compartment very handy here you've got all your fuses right in front of you you know so many inviting manufacturers bury the fuse box under the hood somewhere whereas this is right here right in the dashboard just open that little thing right there and you can check all your fuses horn in the center uh choke is down here on heater controls uh i love this steering wheel it looks reminiscent of the ford banjo steering wheel might be where they got it uh you've got you know most people have green visors these are purple for some reason i don't know why they got a little light over here i mean uh you got hooks to hang your jacket dome light here i mean this was a luxury car this was used by politicians and celebrities and was not cheap uh the car that preceded this the t77 was even longer but i think this is the best one it's the right size it's fast top speed was 103 to 105 miles an hour which was unbelievable for a four-door quote sedan back in the 30s you know 60 miles an hour was barely attainable because i think the average speed limit was probably in the 40s 45 miles an hour something like that so this was a quite a performance car just one of those cars that did everything it was comfortable it was quick it was certainly the equal i think of the mercedes-benz of the period but being in czechoslovakia and hansel winker was not czechoslovakian he was austrian he never even learned to speak czechoslovakian but that's where he built his cars and uh just a brilliant engineer and one of those unsung heroes you know a lot of these guys like henry ford uh like ferdinand porsche brilliant as they were and they didn't like to give a lot of credit bugatti you never heard of any of his chief engineers or any of the ideas he got from miller or any of that stuff it's just just the way it is i guess maybe it's ego but uh let's take this thing next door we'll put it up on the rack we'll show you what it looks like underneath and some more of the unique features of the car okay we've got it up on the lift and as you can see not a lot to see under here this is what aerodynamics looked like in 1938 aerodynamic on the top aerodynamic on the bottom not a lot of places of air to go here uh you know this car is mechanically different from any other automobile i own you've got a rigid the tubular backbone chassis instead of constant velocity joints the car has two crown wheel gears one on each rear axle shaft but you really can't see anything here like that they pivot around a pair of differential spur gears the two spare tires i mentioned are the ones whisperer is in front you know what's interesting there was a guy named gordon wilkins he was a british automotive writer and because of the tail happy tendency of these things he says driving cash produces the uneasy exhilaration you get from shampooing a lion and i just thought it was sort of interesting you know just interesting but hey you got your spring across the front here but you've got a whole smooth undercarriage here probably makes it a little tricky to work on transmission is right there and your engine is right back here there's your shocks brakes and you see why it cuts through the air so smoothly because of all of this so yeah pretty cool car come on let's uh let's take it for a ride you know this website is all about unique driving experiences and this is truly a different kind of car to drive you know my thing with so many modern cars it's just sort of boring because everything is so standardized all the switches have to be in exactly the same place and you know there's just nothing quirky or unusual whereas this has so many fascinating little quirks and things about it just make it really interesting but quite pleasant to drive i mean it drives so much nicer and so much faster and more modern than anything else in 1938 yeah i'll tell you a funny story one day um look at one of the european magazines that are after i got it trying to find anything on tatcha and this is probably the greatest car no one has ever heard of i mean even real car guys i bring it up and i go magnesium v8 hemi overhead cam no no never heard of it but don't know what you're talking about you know so okay so i see this thing join the tatra club oh all right so i called this guy i'm not i can't remember really what country it was in and we talked for a few minutes you know i said i'd love to join the club yes yes yeah talk taco is what mine is you know what model of it so i says what are the benefits of joining the club that we have a newsletter and we have a spare scheme we get various parts you know and trade tips for the owners that's all good he's wearing a christmas party i said i'm not sure i can make the christmas party i said great i'll join you know okay fine and i said um how many people are in the club because counting you four i go four you mean it's just you and two other guys until i joined and goes uh yeah well it must have been a hell of a christmas party hey wow that's just that kind of quirky you know and then you always meet these guys you know every fact you know every little washer every screw how many millimeter it was you know yeah but i love that always minds to me the book fahrenheit 451 uh they made a movie out of it too where they burn all the books and so people walk around and they everyone memorizes one book so they they become that book and they have that knowledge and that's what's what it's like when you join these car clubs there's one guy knows everything about hemis now the guy knows everything about ford falcon sprints and you know if you run the right tire pressure as i said before 22 in the front 40 in the rear it's actually pretty good it's a great car to drive swiftly i wouldn't want to drive this fast because it has basically the same swing swing axle setup as the volkswagen the gold wing mercedes of which hans ludwinka was given credit for developing he was sort of the genius behind it and and really never got his credit you know the front overhang is so short so you can see everything in front of you great field division and i as i mentioned before i love the three windows the tri corner that's fantastic even with five people in it this thing is comfortable and as i said before you can drive it like a modern car you know i got a lot of cars you only take on two lanes side streets and stuff this thing on the freeway rocks steady although as i said before if there's a strong crosswind that tail will will move it can move you around a little bit it's a bit like a boat in choppy water you know the steering is so incredibly light i mean it almost feels like one of those chrysler power steering units from the 50s with it's so easy to turn and brakes are phenomenal and of course you've got the central lubrication you hit that pedal and uh lubricates the chassis and the engine revs like a modern engine i mean it's probably good for 4 500 maybe 5 000 rpm which is unbelievable back in the day i don't take it quite that high because it's plenty torquey it's 2.9 liters which is big by european standards as i said before we did uh we did pistons kept the original rods uh just sort of blueprinted everything george did a wonderful job on this it's probably 10 years since you rebuilt this and not a lick of trouble doesn't leak oil and i love these traffic haters i had a guy contact me he took a tatra motor and put it in a motorcycle like a going frame or something and uh he said it was pretty good because it's still a pretty light motor turning radius quite good of course it's fun because nobody has any idea what it is people think i made it myself or is it is it a custom like 49 plymouth no no it's 1938 it's tatra what i would say in the last decade or so these have become quite valuable you should google the name paul gerais the aerodynamicist he was uh quite a guy as i said he designed the graph zeppelin i think edmund rumpler i think that was uh the other guy he was he built an aerodynamic car and he was a contemporary of hansel winker as well hanzo weekend had a son named eric who wrote a fabulous book about his father and about the car you know it's funny there were just so many engineering geniuses in that first quarter century of uh the 20th century you know w.o bentley the duesenberg brothers bugatti hanzo winker frederick lanchester i mean it goes on and on edward turner all these guys and and just sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil and maybe a slide rule and a what do you call the deal with it you know but i always like automobiles that were one man's vision i say one man because women didn't design automobiles in the early part it just wasn't there weren't very many women engineers now you have many the head designer who designed the nsx the woman we had at the garage did a beautiful job uh mary barra at the mgm but in the in the day you know duesenberg built what he liked bentley built what he liked alex uh isagonis who designed the mini i didn't like radio so he couldn't get a minion with a radio so people made a fortune selling radios to many owners you know well gordon murray gordon murray didn't like radios either he put a a disc player in the f1 mclaren i threw that in because the people say i mentioned the f1 mclaren in almost every video so i want to make sure i got it in there so they go hey you mentioned it again but this is a car you could drive la to san francisco no problem you know it's a car i enjoy driving long distances extremely comfortable and it's just so different but all in a good way it's different than the way a sichuan ds is different everything is looked at totally in a different way just the way the gearbox and the engine are made everything is different about it everybody gives you a thumbs up on this thing people like it it's kind of like imagine a rear engine volkswagen with a v8 and a lot of power and a longer wheelbase and that's kind of what it is really because he was sort of the father of that although ferdinand porsche takes all the credit i would say fifty to sixty percent of the credit should go to hans ludwinka anyway i hope you enjoyed this little ride in this unusual car the one interesting thing about this pandemic is there's hardly any traffic in l.a so you can go out and drive around we'll see you guys next week thanks for watching ahand this is probably the greatest car no one has ever heard of even real car guys i bring it up and i go magnesium v8 hemi overhead cam no no never heard of it don't know what you're talking about welcome to another episode of jaylon's garage pandemic edition once again i'm in my uh very quiet garage and uh with a very fascinating automobile this is the 1938 tatra t87 uh one of the most unusual one of the most brilliant cars of all time you know what's funny this is a rear engine car it is a v8 it is air-cooled it is 2.9 liter has a hemi head in it it's got a four-speed transmission and the block is cast magnesium for light weight uh you know it's funny here in america we all go crazy for the tucker you know the tuckers sell for well over two million dollars someone the average one's about a million five and certainly a nice car and a fascinating car but this predates it by 10 years and it was a much more finished automobile you know the tucker nothing against the tucker but it used somebody else's engine a franklin aircraft engine to use the transmission from the auburn cord and almost they built what 51 i think every one was a prototype tatra built these as sedans very dependable these cars got 20 miles per gallon at 60 miles an hour which today doesn't seem like a whole lot but back in the day when you had a big car like this six to nine miles per gallon was the norm and the fact that this would get 20 miles per gallon which is pretty amazing and with the aerodynamics when you get off the throttle at this at 60 it almost feels like freewheeling because it's cutting through the air so efficiently and the coefficient of drag in the wind tunnel was 0.24 and on the finished production model with all the stuff on it and you know people ended in windows and everything it was .36 which was amazing which was just unbelievable you got that he had that big fin in the back for directional stability the vehicle has about 38 at the front so it's very lightweight when i open the hood you'll see you have the gas tank up here plus two spare tires to kind of weigh down the front a little bit the advantage is you can really drive it with one finger these were built in czechoslovakia the designer was a man named hans ludwinka just a brilliant engineer hanzo winker was a contemporary of ferdinand porsche porsche of course developed the volkswagen but actually hanzo winker was one of the leading lights behind it uh partial would say that lewinka was looking over his shoulder and he was looking over to winker's shoulder and when they went to court and won he was awarded whatever the german current three million deutsche marks whatever way he didn't ever get to collect it he didn't have a very good lawyer what had happened was when the nazis took over uh lewinka was forced to work for them as many people in germany were and when the soviet union put him on trial he wound up doing six years in prison uh rather sad story uh released in 1951's filed his lawsuit won but never collected anything and then died i think somewhat penniless in 67 but he was a brilliant brilliant uh brilliant designer and engineer this body was designed by paul gerais and who was one of the leading aerodynamicists of the period he uh he was the guy that designed the graph zeppelin that was his deal and this is i think one of the first truly aerodynamic automobiles it is just a fascinating car to drive even though it's 1938 it really feels like a car from i don't know the early 60s it handles well well let's put that in perspective it handles it differently you know because of the swing axle uh we all know the trouble with volkswagen and corvair's with the swing axle uh if you run 40 pounds of pressure in the rear and 22 in the front you're fine but these gained quite a reputation because when germany invaded czechoslovakia and took over the tatra factory these were luxury cars and these were commandeered by the ss and the high command and they were so fast and so deceptively quick that a lot of the a lot of the officers would get on the autobahn come off the exit at high speed roll them you know the wheel would tuck under and they'd go off just as you would in an early porsche because they didn't know to stay on the throttle through the corner you know they'd back off and the wheel would tuck under and i think the first week they lost seven commanding nazi officers and hitler said that's it no more tantras i don't want any my people drive just leave them by the side of the road don't bring them back to germany just leave them there and uh i think in the first week these actually killed more nazis than the czechoslovakian army is not an insult it's just one of those stories that i sort of enjoy but uh yeah so the car is a bit of a hero in that sense uh but a fascinating fascinating car we'll go for a ride in a little bit and you'll see but i'll take you through it and show you some of the elements of it it has four wheel hydraulic brakes you know nowadays we live in a world where almost all information is shared universally if there's a breakthrough in germany and suspension design that we learned about here there's a breakthrough here they learn about it in france or italy wherever whereas hansel winker was working in czech slovakia sort of on the other side of the tatra mountains so he would he just did his own thing engineering wise design wise this doesn't really resemble any other car uh there's a story that hans and winker had a cousin i think his name was breer he worked for chrysler and the airflow is reminiscent of this but when you look at the wheels on the toucha and the wheels on my 34 chrysler info it almost looks like the same wheel so maybe there's some truth there but it's one of those rumors that yeah you don't really know i like the window set up here it looks like one of those ford uh what was it the tri-motor the aircraft you know and it had the three windows in front uh it's a four-seater you have a sunroof it's fascinating because you have your rear seating compartment here then you have a firewall then you have a luggage compartment then you have another firewall and then you have the engine so the engine is so far back no fumes get in the car no noise gets in the car it's all sort of behind you and you're sitting way up front here and because the weight distribution with only 38 in the front you can really steer it with one finger it almost feels like power steering from the 50s you go how could this be so light when it's moving that's why they uh have two spare tires up front and the jack and everything just to get a little more weight over the front wheels once you learn how to drive it it's fine it's really a wonderful cruising car this car is about it was 70 70 to 75 horsepower from the factory this one we rebuilt it we did new pistons so then we dynoed it and we got 85 horsepower out of it so we got another 10 horsepower using a more modern carburetor but other than that that's the only quote resto mod thing we did we just changed that didn't need to change the brakes quite powerful suspension was great um everything on it is well here let's start with the front of course unique and you have three headlights which is uh unusual certainly uh the center one does not turn it's just a third headlight now we put these two straps on here because bob who since passed away one day he said let me check it for you he left this unlocked i went down the road the whole hood blew up so i'm just just going blind with the hood mashed over the windshield and just slowly got to pull over the side of the road got the hood down straightened a little bit and got back here and then we we fixed it but yeah that was uh so we said you know something let's put these straps on here so that doesn't happen again so let's open this up your horns as you can see are outside the car which actually makes perfect sense because you could really hear them you know so many times they put the horn under the hood and you hear it in the car fine but not that well outside well as you can see i only have one spare tire in here i didn't feel the need for two i usually keep the tank pretty full so that keeps the front end down a little bit we added a new oil cooler this is the oil cooler here these lines run all the way to the back of the car and it works very well you've got a pretty good oil capacity in this thing uh so it's always circulating and it because and the other cool thing is the oil cooler is far away from the engine you know a lot of modern cars the oil cooler is right there so it's also absorbing heat from the engine whereas this it stays way out in front you know engine obviously in the back so the oil just gets nothing but cool air coming through there this is your gas tank here this little what we have here that little reservoir what the car has is a central lubricating system you've got a pedal on the floor and they say every 70 miles or a couple of times or whatever it is you just hit the pedal a few times and it shoots oil or lubricant grease rather to all the lubricating points of the car so that's that's kind of cool as i mentioned before the two horns and your spare tire right there okay your actual trunk is in front of the engine compartment but let's put this back down let's uh fasten that there we go there we are you always want to put these on so the hood does not fly off again okay it's a unique looking car nothing else on the road people just freak out when you go buy them in this thing i think it's some kind of custom car or batmobile or something you know come on let's go around to the rail i'll show you the engine compartment this is probably the most controversial side of the car because of this huge fin for directional stability it actually works although on a windy day when you get those crosstals on the freeway you can feel the backhand move a little bit with this if it's blowing really hard uh your rear view mirror you have a window and then you see through these slats and everybody talks about the lamborghini mural you know had the slats weren't they the first ones well no this actually had it first uh rear vision is not great that's why we put the side mirrors on there nice chrome bumpers a lot of air but here let's open it up all right here's something interesting what you have right over here i've just got these wires see those two lock plugs in the firewall but in czechoslovakia gas stations were few and far between so the idea was every time you sold the car you had to sell it with some spare parts in the car in case your owner needed them most of the time they just put spark plugs in it sometimes they leave a piston or a connecting rod you know like you're going to fix it on the road uh but that's what it was and that's why that's there for no other reason than it was requirement back in the day that you had to have spare parts with the car when you sold it to the customer uh there's the weber carburetor we put on that originally was a solex cast magnesium just brilliant just brilliant very lightweight air cooled your fan is buried down underneath there and these slats here depending on whether it's hot or cold you open them and close them to direct more cool air into the motor or to get hot air out but it tells you in the winter move the slants one way and the summer moving the other way a very clean design and it's a v8 that always freaks people out they expect to see some little four cylinders or something but it's a 2.9 hemi head as i said a brilliant design and just a wonderful wonderful motor and of course air cooled so you never have any problems with you know well freezing or water or anything like that you know it's brilliant check your oil right here uh we did pistons on this we used the original rods they were good we had them magnaflux and checked they were fine uh george swift you know our chief mechanic here did a beautiful job putting this engine together um he's got gray hair now and he's like this but that's okay because the engine is uh is good but uh when it's ever running i always go by george's house look george is still running and he's very happy about that but as you can see you've got air ducts coming in on the side so it's always fun this never overheats on me i you know i have friends that have tatras and they they drive them all over the world through the desert whatever and they're they're fine they're fine so there's your coil it's your ignition everything here is as it was in 1938 we haven't modified anything other than just getting a more modern uh carburetor here's your air cleaner right here and that's pretty much it for the engine compartment come on let's take a look inside the car put that down there on show the inside these really were luxury automobiles i'm sitting in the back seat now the front seat is all the way back because i got long legs and i've got plenty of room here and it's quite comfortable i mean the fact that this got 20 miles per gallon was pretty amazing back in the day and right behind me right here is your luggage compartment these seats come forward you see this opens up here and then you have this luggage department here then you have a rear window there that goes to the engine compartment so you can see why it stays relatively quiet in here i haven't been back here a long time there's nothing in there this shuts and then it has just these sort of sliding pieces here and you have another little window here so it's not claustrophobic and a huge just an enormous sunroof so it's you have magazine pockets back here as well so it's actually quite a pleasant place to be and i love this green leather so that's pretty neat this is all the original interior in the car as well um extremely well made automobile and not cheap i don't know the exact price but uh certainly equal i think to any american cars of the period buick chrysler any of the high-end stuff that we had cadillac i mean this was just a completely different way of thinking this is the ultimate aerodynamic car in fact there aren't many automobiles today that have a coefficient of drag as good as this one you probably have to go to a pre or some one of those cars to match it and considering it's almost what 80 years earlier that's uh that's pretty amazing because wind tunnel technology was in its infancy so pretty cool but all right come on let's get in the front seat now and you have little ashtrays and all the doors well hop in the front as he got suicide doors in the front although i don't believe any manufacturer ever used the term suicide door quite spacious you got a big sun roof right here goes all the way back i mean it's it's really fantastic and i love these three windows i you know something about a split windshield i always like it i don't know why although you know the 57 chrysler was the first one to have the total wrap-around windshield where they could bend the glass but these look kind of cool because you feel like you're in some kind of early aircraft you have a speedometer and which turns the other way it goes this direction which is weird because you get in it and you go what you know and then of course you got air temperature or similar head temperature i guess amps oil pressure uh fuel and of course you have a clock right here uh four speed you have this lever on the floor right here i'll press it a couple of times that shoots lubricant to all the chassis points again very comfortable leather seats ashtray glove compartment very handy here you've got all your fuses right in front of you you know so many inviting manufacturers bury the fuse box under the hood somewhere whereas this is right here right in the dashboard just open that little thing right there and you can check all your fuses horn in the center uh choke is down here on heater controls uh i love this steering wheel it looks reminiscent of the ford banjo steering wheel might be where they got it uh you've got you know most people have green visors these are purple for some reason i don't know why they got a little light over here i mean uh you got hooks to hang your jacket dome light here i mean this was a luxury car this was used by politicians and celebrities and was not cheap uh the car that preceded this the t77 was even longer but i think this is the best one it's the right size it's fast top speed was 103 to 105 miles an hour which was unbelievable for a four-door quote sedan back in the 30s you know 60 miles an hour was barely attainable because i think the average speed limit was probably in the 40s 45 miles an hour something like that so this was a quite a performance car just one of those cars that did everything it was comfortable it was quick it was certainly the equal i think of the mercedes-benz of the period but being in czechoslovakia and hansel winker was not czechoslovakian he was austrian he never even learned to speak czechoslovakian but that's where he built his cars and uh just a brilliant engineer and one of those unsung heroes you know a lot of these guys like henry ford uh like ferdinand porsche brilliant as they were and they didn't like to give a lot of credit bugatti you never heard of any of his chief engineers or any of the ideas he got from miller or any of that stuff it's just just the way it is i guess maybe it's ego but uh let's take this thing next door we'll put it up on the rack we'll show you what it looks like underneath and some more of the unique features of the car okay we've got it up on the lift and as you can see not a lot to see under here this is what aerodynamics looked like in 1938 aerodynamic on the top aerodynamic on the bottom not a lot of places of air to go here uh you know this car is mechanically different from any other automobile i own you've got a rigid the tubular backbone chassis instead of constant velocity joints the car has two crown wheel gears one on each rear axle shaft but you really can't see anything here like that they pivot around a pair of differential spur gears the two spare tires i mentioned are the ones whisperer is in front you know what's interesting there was a guy named gordon wilkins he was a british automotive writer and because of the tail happy tendency of these things he says driving cash produces the uneasy exhilaration you get from shampooing a lion and i just thought it was sort of interesting you know just interesting but hey you got your spring across the front here but you've got a whole smooth undercarriage here probably makes it a little tricky to work on transmission is right there and your engine is right back here there's your shocks brakes and you see why it cuts through the air so smoothly because of all of this so yeah pretty cool car come on let's uh let's take it for a ride you know this website is all about unique driving experiences and this is truly a different kind of car to drive you know my thing with so many modern cars it's just sort of boring because everything is so standardized all the switches have to be in exactly the same place and you know there's just nothing quirky or unusual whereas this has so many fascinating little quirks and things about it just make it really interesting but quite pleasant to drive i mean it drives so much nicer and so much faster and more modern than anything else in 1938 yeah i'll tell you a funny story one day um look at one of the european magazines that are after i got it trying to find anything on tatcha and this is probably the greatest car no one has ever heard of i mean even real car guys i bring it up and i go magnesium v8 hemi overhead cam no no never heard of it but don't know what you're talking about you know so okay so i see this thing join the tatra club oh all right so i called this guy i'm not i can't remember really what country it was in and we talked for a few minutes you know i said i'd love to join the club yes yes yeah talk taco is what mine is you know what model of it so i says what are the benefits of joining the club that we have a newsletter and we have a spare scheme we get various parts you know and trade tips for the owners that's all good he's wearing a christmas party i said i'm not sure i can make the christmas party i said great i'll join you know okay fine and i said um how many people are in the club because counting you four i go four you mean it's just you and two other guys until i joined and goes uh yeah well it must have been a hell of a christmas party hey wow that's just that kind of quirky you know and then you always meet these guys you know every fact you know every little washer every screw how many millimeter it was you know yeah but i love that always minds to me the book fahrenheit 451 uh they made a movie out of it too where they burn all the books and so people walk around and they everyone memorizes one book so they they become that book and they have that knowledge and that's what's what it's like when you join these car clubs there's one guy knows everything about hemis now the guy knows everything about ford falcon sprints and you know if you run the right tire pressure as i said before 22 in the front 40 in the rear it's actually pretty good it's a great car to drive swiftly i wouldn't want to drive this fast because it has basically the same swing swing axle setup as the volkswagen the gold wing mercedes of which hans ludwinka was given credit for developing he was sort of the genius behind it and and really never got his credit you know the front overhang is so short so you can see everything in front of you great field division and i as i mentioned before i love the three windows the tri corner that's fantastic even with five people in it this thing is comfortable and as i said before you can drive it like a modern car you know i got a lot of cars you only take on two lanes side streets and stuff this thing on the freeway rocks steady although as i said before if there's a strong crosswind that tail will will move it can move you around a little bit it's a bit like a boat in choppy water you know the steering is so incredibly light i mean it almost feels like one of those chrysler power steering units from the 50s with it's so easy to turn and brakes are phenomenal and of course you've got the central lubrication you hit that pedal and uh lubricates the chassis and the engine revs like a modern engine i mean it's probably good for 4 500 maybe 5 000 rpm which is unbelievable back in the day i don't take it quite that high because it's plenty torquey it's 2.9 liters which is big by european standards as i said before we did uh we did pistons kept the original rods uh just sort of blueprinted everything george did a wonderful job on this it's probably 10 years since you rebuilt this and not a lick of trouble doesn't leak oil and i love these traffic haters i had a guy contact me he took a tatra motor and put it in a motorcycle like a going frame or something and uh he said it was pretty good because it's still a pretty light motor turning radius quite good of course it's fun because nobody has any idea what it is people think i made it myself or is it is it a custom like 49 plymouth no no it's 1938 it's tatra what i would say in the last decade or so these have become quite valuable you should google the name paul gerais the aerodynamicist he was uh quite a guy as i said he designed the graph zeppelin i think edmund rumpler i think that was uh the other guy he was he built an aerodynamic car and he was a contemporary of hansel winker as well hanzo weekend had a son named eric who wrote a fabulous book about his father and about the car you know it's funny there were just so many engineering geniuses in that first quarter century of uh the 20th century you know w.o bentley the duesenberg brothers bugatti hanzo winker frederick lanchester i mean it goes on and on edward turner all these guys and and just sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil and maybe a slide rule and a what do you call the deal with it you know but i always like automobiles that were one man's vision i say one man because women didn't design automobiles in the early part it just wasn't there weren't very many women engineers now you have many the head designer who designed the nsx the woman we had at the garage did a beautiful job uh mary barra at the mgm but in the in the day you know duesenberg built what he liked bentley built what he liked alex uh isagonis who designed the mini i didn't like radio so he couldn't get a minion with a radio so people made a fortune selling radios to many owners you know well gordon murray gordon murray didn't like radios either he put a a disc player in the f1 mclaren i threw that in because the people say i mentioned the f1 mclaren in almost every video so i want to make sure i got it in there so they go hey you mentioned it again but this is a car you could drive la to san francisco no problem you know it's a car i enjoy driving long distances extremely comfortable and it's just so different but all in a good way it's different than the way a sichuan ds is different everything is looked at totally in a different way just the way the gearbox and the engine are made everything is different about it everybody gives you a thumbs up on this thing people like it it's kind of like imagine a rear engine volkswagen with a v8 and a lot of power and a longer wheelbase and that's kind of what it is really because he was sort of the father of that although ferdinand porsche takes all the credit i would say fifty to sixty percent of the credit should go to hans ludwinka anyway i hope you enjoyed this little ride in this unusual car the one interesting thing about this pandemic is there's hardly any traffic in l.a so you can go out and drive around we'll see you guys next week thanks for watching ah\n"