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The final Weird car of the week
This weeks weird car of the week is the Czech built Tatra, The Tatra company dates back to 1850 and was the 3rd oldest car maker in Europe.
Tatra produced the world's first aerodynamic car in 1934.
The Tatra designer discussed his ideas with Ferdinand Porsche who used many Tatra design features in the VW Beetle. Tatra started legal action, but the matter was not resolved until 1961 when Volkswagen was ordered to pay 3,000,000 Deutsche Marks in damages.
One of their most recognizable models was the T603 that started life in 1955 and was built until 1975, it featured three headlights and a rear engined air cooled V8. The T603 appeared in the 2005 movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Almost entirely hand-built, Tatras were not for everybody; normal citizens could not buy them. They were reserved for Party elites, Communist officials, factory presidents and other notables, as well as being exported to most other Communist nations as official cars. Even Fidel Castro had a white Tatra T603.
The Tatra T613 was released in 1975. Although the shape was all new, the engine and layout remained the same, except for moving the engine somewhat forward to improve balance. These cars were built until 1996. Over 11,000 cars were built, slowing to a trickle of but a few dozen a year towards the end as Tatras began to seem more and more outdated.
With orders and production almost at a standstill after the fall of Communism, Tatra decided to stop building the T613 in 1996. An attempt was made to produce an updated version, the T700; it was largely based on the old car, with updated body panels and detail. Sales were poor, and in 1999 Tatra abandoned the manufacture of cars but still make trucks.  Tatra T603  Tatra T613 link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_cars |
