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Tristan Stowards |
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| Cat.05 | |
| HANS LEDWINKA worked at Tatra, an innovative Czech car manufacturer. In the 1930s he designed the T97, a small 4 seater saloon with an aerodynamic body on a platform chassis, independently sprung by torsion bars & powered by a rear mounted flat 4 air-cooled engine. (Ferdinand Porsche admitted to “looking over Hans’ shoulder” when designing the uncannily similar volks-wagen for the Third Reich. Tatra got theT97 into production before the German’s were ready with their VW, & Adolf Hitler was furious when a T97 appeared at the 1939 Berlin Exposition; Germany had been caught cheating! To save face Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia & shut Tatra production down. Unlike the Volkswagen, the T97 never resumed production after WWII, but Ledwinka did get a medal. | |