HISTORY
Car production in the Moravian town of Kopřivnice dates back to 1850 when Ignác Šustala founded a family company to manufacture coaches and carriages of his own design. 1880s brought a profound change in transport.
The uncomfortable carriages were replaced incrementally by rail transport. Šustala´s company built some new facilities to produce its first 15 railcars in 1882.
An important milestone came in 1897 when the company built the first passenger car in Central Europe, the “Präsident, and in 1898 when the first lorry was produced here. The lorry of payload 2,5 t was driven by two, rear-housed Benz engines, and was a basis for Tatra truck production for the years to follow.
A major contribution to the TATRA tradition was made by the ingenious designer Hans Ledwinka, who in 1923 introduced the T 11 car to thepublic. The car design concept was truly revolutionary-the car was built over a backbone tube, carrying swinging half-axles in the rear. This design idea became famous as ” the tatra chassis design” that has been used since.
Between WWI and WWII car designers at Kopřivnice worked intensively on a world novelty – the first series-made streamlined passenger car with a monocoque body and rear-housed air-cooled engine. The T77 was introduced to the public on March 5th, 1934. In the same year the name TATRA was officially registered as the company´s trade name.
The third milestone in 1934 was the aircraft production startup in TATRA. Even in the field of airborne engines production TATRA proved its exceptional design and production capacities.
In the post-war period TATRA specialised in the production of luxury cars in low and medium series. The T 77 and the very successful model “Tatraplán” were replaced by the T 603, a model that was manufactured until the end of 1975 – almost 20.500 units were made. This car was in 1975 replaced by the T 613 a model that was replaced in 1996 by the T 700, the last model so far.
In 1998 passenger car production was terminated and the company focused mainly on truck production – a sector that since 1942 was gaining ever bigger share to become the core business now.
Truck production development was driven mainly by military orders. Extreme cross-country performance, robust design, simple maintenance, high productivity and long durability made TATRA an ideal vehicle to work in extreme climatic and off-road environments.
This was proved first by the T 111 (1942-1962), an air-cooled engine driven truck that proved itself in the toughest regions of Siberia.
The Tatra chassis design concept, specifically the air-cooled engine, rigid central tube and swinging jointless half-axles, was the basis for several model families of starting with T 138 ( since 1959), followed by the T 813 (since 1967), T 148 (since 1970) and last but not least the T 815 (since 1983).
The T 815-2, a model family with fully synchromesh gearboxes and upgraded turbocharged engines, is a world-class vehicle. Tatra trucks comply with the most rigorous environmental regulations (EURO II). TATRA, a.s. has also designed and tested vehicles complying with EURO III limits.
T 815-2 EURO II vehicles served in 1997 as a model for a new truck family – TERRNo.1. JAMAL is a name of vehicles designed for the toughest working conditions, while military vehicles have been labeled as ARMAX. Vehicles nicknamed FORCE are just another proof of exceptional design flexibility and development level achieved by TATRA.
CONTACT
TATRA, a.s.
Areál Tatry 1450/1
742 21 Koprivnice
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 556 49 23 98
Fax: +420 556 49 26 72
Email: projects@tatra.cz
URL: www.tatra.cz
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Technorati Tags: auto, Axle, Czech, Koprivnice, Mining, Rigid, Tatra, truck
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