Tatra—The Grand Prix Car that never was

Tatra’s predecessor Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (the name Tatra was adopted in 1919) built its first racing car in 1900 and the company continued to be involved in auto racing throughout the following decades. However, for the next 50 years, all their racing cars were derived from existing production models. This included the T602 Tatraplán Sport built for the 1949 Czechoslovak Grand Prix, which was based on the T600 passenger car (popularly known as Tatraplán) that itself was a continuation of the pre-WWII concept of T77 and T87 models designed by the legendary engineer Hans Ledwinka. In the race featuring among others the likes of Giuseppe Farina, Birabongse Bira, Emmanuel de Graffenried, Louis Chiron, Maurice Trintignant and the eventual winner Peter Whitehead, the car driven by veteran racing driver Bruno Sojka finished two laps down in 9^th place. Nonetheless, it was probably the first time ever that an air-cooled car had finished and been classified in an officially sanctioned Grand Prix event.

In 1950, Tatra produced its first (and still only) single-seater: T607 Monopost. Although the primary reason for its introduction was development and testing of a new engine for the planned T603 limousine, it was a genuine purpose built racing car…