The Tatra 600, named the Tatraplan, was a rear-engined large family car produced from 1948 to 1952 by the Czech manufacturer Tatra. The first prototype was finished in 1946.
Tatra is a Czech vehicle manufacturer from Kopřivnice. It is owned by the Tatra Trucks company, and it is the third oldest company in the world producing cars with an unbroken history. The company was founded in 1850 as Ignatz Schustala & Cie, in 1890 renamed in German Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft when it became a wagon and carriage manufacturer. In 1897, Tatra produced the first motor car in central Europe, the Präsident automobile. In 1918, it changed its name to Kopřivnická vozovka a.s., and in 1919 it changed from the Nesselsdorfer marque to the Tatra badge, named after the nearby Tatra Mountains on the Czechoslovak-Polish border.
Hans Ledwinka was an Austrian automobile designer.
The Messerschmitt Kabinenroller was a series of microcars made by RSM Messerschmitt from 1953 to 1956 and by Fahrzeug- und Maschinenbau GmbH, Regensburg (FMR) from 1956 to 1964. All the Messerschmitt and FMR production cars used the Kabinenroller's monocoque structure, featuring tandem seating and usually a bubble canopy.
The FMR Tg500 was a sports car built by Fahrzeug- und Maschinenbau GmbH, Regensburg (FMR) from 1958 to 1961. Based on the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller monocoque, which otherwise was a platform for three-wheelers, the Tg500 was a four-wheeled car with a two-stroke straight-two engine. FMR had taken over production of the KR200 from Messerschmitt in 1956. While the KR200 still used the Messerschmitt name and logo, the Tg500 was badged as an FMR.
The Brütsch Mopetta is an egg-shaped, single-seat, three-wheel automobile manufactured from 1956 to 1958 with a total production of 14. It was the smallest in a series of microcars designed by Egon Brütsch.
Simson was a German company which produced firearms, automobiles, bicycles and motorcycles, and mopeds. Under the Third Reich, the factory was taken from the Jewish Simson family, and was renamed several times under Nazi and later Communist control. The Simson name was reintroduced as a brand name for mopeds produced at the factory in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Simson mopeds were then produced in Suhl (Germany) until 2002.
The Czechoslovakian Tatra 77 (T77) is by many considered to be the first serial-produced, truly aerodynamically-designed automobile. It was developed by Hans Ledwinka and Paul Jaray, the Zeppelin aerodynamic engineer. Launched in 1934, the Tatra 77 is a coach-built automobile, constructed on a platform chassis with a pressed box-section steel backbone rather than Tatra's trademark tubular chassis, and is powered by a 60 horsepower (45 kW) rear-mounted 2.97-litre air-cooled V8 engine, in later series increased to a 75 horsepower (56 kW) 3.4-litre engine. It possessed advanced engineering features, such as overhead valves, hemispherical combustion chambers, a dry sump, fully independent suspension, rear swing axles and extensive use of lightweight magnesium alloy for the engine, transmission, suspension and body. The average drag coefficient of a 1:5 model of Tatra 77 was recorded as 0.2455. The later model T77a has a top speed of over 150 km/h (93 mph) due to its advanced aerodynamic design which delivers an exceptionally low drag coefficient of 0.212, although some sources claim that this is the coefficient of a 1:5 scale model, not of the car itself.
Fritz Fend was an aeronautical engineer. He was noted for designing Messerschmitt's Kabinenroller (cabinscooter) KR175 and KR200 microcars, for co-founding FMR, the company that took over production of the Kabinenrollers in 1956, and for designing the FMR Tg500, a sports microcar based on the Kabinenroller. Fend continued his career as an inventor and designer after the KR200 ended production. Fend was working on another lightweight vehicle project shortly before his death.
The Tatra 87 (T87) is a car built by Czechoslovak manufacturer Tatra. It was powered by a rear-mounted 2.9-litre air-cooled 90-degree overhead cam V8 engine that produced 85 horsepower and could drive the car at nearly 100 mph (160 km/h). It is ranked among the fastest production cars of its time. Competing cars in this class, however, used engines with almost twice the displacement, and with fuel consumption of 20 liters per 100 km. Thanks to its aerodynamic shape, the Tatra 87 had a consumption of just 12.5 litres per 100 km. After the war between 1950 and 1953, T87s were fitted with more-modern 2.5-litre V8 T603 engines.
The Tatra 97 (T97) is a Czechoslovak mid-size car built by Tatra in Kopřivnice, Moravia from 1936 to 1939.
The Tatra 80 is a Czechoslovak luxury full-size car built by Tatra between 1931 and 1935.
Steyr was an Austrian automotive brand, established in 1915 as a branch of the Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft (ÖWG) weapon manufacturing company. Renamed Steyr-Werke AG in 1926 and merged with Austro-Daimler and Puch into Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, it continued manufacturing Steyr automobiles until 1959.
Egon Brütsch Fahrzeugbau, usually shortened to Brütsch, was a German automotive design and automaker based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg.
Fuldamobil is the name of a series of small cars produced by Elektromaschinenbau Fulda GmbH of Fulda, Germany, and Nordwestdeutscher Fahrzeugbau (NWF) of Wilhelmshaven between 1950 and 1969. Various designated versions of the car were produced, although the vehicles produced under each designation were not always identical and the designations were sometimes misapplied. Though overall numbers produced were relatively small, the cars attracted sufficient attention to see licensed construction on four continents including Europe. In its ultimate configuration it is said to have inspired the term "bubble car". It is acknowledged as the first car in the world to feature a negative scrub radius, now recognised as a major advance in driving safety.
The Tatra 30 is an automobile formerly made by the Czech manufacturer Tatra. It was manufactured between 1926 and 1928. From 1928 to 1931 the car was fitted with a newer engine and is therefore called the Tatra 30/52.
Rennzweier is a veteran automobile manufactured by Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft A.G. in 1900. It is sometimes also called First racing, 12 HP or Rennwagen. It was commissioned by baron Theodor von Liebig. Hans Ledwinka, the man behind the famous rear-engined Tatras, and at the time only 20 years old, took part in constructing the car. The car was manufactured on May 5, 1900, and the manufacturing process took only 5 weeks.
The Tatra V570 was a prototype early 1930s car developed by a team led by Hans Ledwinka and Paul Jaray. The aim of the construction team was to develop a cheap people's car with an aerodynamic body. However the company's management decided that the revolutionary ideas introduced in the prototype should be introduced in large luxurious cars, and therefore the team abandoned the project of small cars in favour of the Tatra T77, the world's first serially produced aerodynamic car. The project of a small car was later continued and led to introduction of the Tatra T97. The second V570 was built in 1933, two years before the first Volkswagen, which bears a strong resemblance to the Tatra – it was misappropriated in the opinion of Tatra, by Adolf Hitler and Dr. Ferdinand Porsche in circumstances about which the German company remains intensely sensitive.
The Präsident was an automobile manufactured by Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriks-Gesellschaft A.G. in 1897. It was the first actually drivable factory made petrol-engined automobile produced in Austria-Hungary as well as in Central and Eastern Europe. It was constructed by Leopold Sviták and Hans Ledwinka. The automobile was more of a carriage without horses than a car in modern sense. The car is steered via handlebars. The wooden bodywork is placed on an iron frame. It has four seats and a convertible top that would cover only the rear seats. Both axles have suspension of semi-elliptical leaf springs. The wheels were similar to the ones of a horse carriage, but had rubber tyres. The car had a two cylinder spark ignition Benz engine placed by the rear axle.
The original Škoda Superb is a full size luxury car that was made by the Czechoslovak car manufacturer ASAP, later AZNP from 1934 to 1949. It was the company's first car with a V8 engine and all-wheel drive.
