Tatra – The Legacy of Hans Ledwinka

The story of the Tatra company, which originates in Czechoslovakia, is one of great innovation and avant-garde design in automobile engineering. It is also the story of one man - Hans Ledwinka - and his visionary concepts which have become highly influential, although often undervalued contributions, in the development of car technology. Until now Hans Ledwinka's talent has hardly been recognised; in retrospect he can be judged equal to car designers such as Benz, Daimler and Porsche, whose endeavours have been fully recorded many times over. With his revolutionary Tatra cars he consistently pushed back the frontiers of automobile construction and it is certain without his inspiration, the Volkswagen in its air-cooled rear engine form would never have been conceived. This book suggests that Ledwinka played a greater part in this development than has previously been appreciated. During World War II, Hitler became very impressed with the Tatra cars which had been based on Ledwinka's pioneering designs utilising swinging half-axles and rear air-cooled engines. Hitler engaged Porsche to capitalise on these designs in order to produce a `people's car' which later became the Volkswagen. After the war Tatra sued Porsch regarding many aspects of the Volkswagon design. They paid a large financial settlement based on the proviso that Ledwinka was to keep quiet about his part in the development of the designs. It was to this end, coupled with the fact that Czechoslovakia became encased behind the Iron Curtain after the war, that the facts about Ledwinka's pioneering work are hardly known in the West. It is this story that forms the backbone of the book and redresses that balance by reassessing Ledwinka'a influence on the history of car design. No other book solely concentrating on the Tatra company or Ledwinka has been published in the English language. With the increasing interest in classic cars, the Tatra cars with their futuristic designs are now being acknowledged as pioneering models and are fast becoming collector's items.