The Tatra 87 (T87) is a car built by Czechoslovak manufacturer Tatra from 1936 to 1950. It was powered by a rear-mounted 2.9-litre air-cooled 90-degree overhead camV8 engine that produced 85 horsepower and could drive the car at nearly 100 mph (160 km/h). It is ranked among the fastest production cars of its time. Competing cars in this class, however, used engines with almost twice the displacement, and with fuel consumption of 20 liters per 100 km (11.8 mpg). Thanks to its aerodynamic shape, the Tatra 87 had a consumption of just 12.5 litres per 100 km (18.8 mpg). After the war between 1950 and 1953, T87s were fitted with more-modern 2.5-litre V8 T603 engines.[5]
The 87 was used by Hanzelka and Zikmund for their travel through Africa and Latin America from 1947 to 1950.[6]
Design
The Tatra 87 has unique bodywork. Its streamlined shape was designed by Hans Ledwinka and Erich Übelacker and was based on the Tatra 77, the first car designed with aerodynamics in mind.[1] The body design was based on proposals submitted by Paul Jaray of Hungarian descent, who designed the famous German Graf Zeppelindirigibles. A fin in the sloping rear of the Tatra helps to divide the air pressure on both sides of the car, a technique used later in aircraft. Tatra 87 had a drag coefficient of 0.36 as tested in the VW tunnel in 1979 as well as reading of 0.244 for a 1:5 model tested in 1941.[7]
Art deco-styled dashboard in a 1947 T87
Small sets of windows in the dividers between the passenger, luggage space and engine compartments, plus louvres providing air for the air-cooled engine, allowed limited rear visibility. Its entire rear segment could be opened, to service the engine. The front doors are rear-hinged coach doors, sometimes termed "suicide doors", and the rear doors are front-hinged.
A 1940 Tatra 87 Saloon, showing the identifiable rear 'Sharks-fin' and lack of rear windows
Many design elements of the Tatra 87, V570 and the later T97, were copied by later car manufacturers. Ferdinand Porsche was heavily influenced by the Tatra 87 and T97 and the flat-four-cylinder engine in his design of the Volkswagen Beetle, and was subsequently sued by Tatra.
The price new (in the 1940s) was 25,000 SFr.[2] Its value today is around $125,000.[8] A 1941 Tatra 87, owned and restored by Paul Greenstein and Dydia DeLyser of Los Angeles California, won a New York Times reader's poll of collector's cars in 2010, beating strong competition from 651 cars.[9]
The entire rear segment of the Tatra 87 formed an engine cowling.
Hans Ledwinka – the Tatra constructer (when pensioned he got one as a gift from Felix Wankel. This car is now on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich)
Ernst Heinkel – German Nazi aircraft designer, whose company produced the world's first turbojet aircraft and jet plane, as well as the first rocket aircraft
Emil František Burian – Czech poet, journalist, singer, actor, musician, composer, dramatic adviser, playwright and director
Vítězslav Nezval – one of the most prolific avant-garde Czech writers in the first half of the twentieth century and a co-founder of the Surrealist movement in Czechoslovakia
Erwin Rommel – German General and Field Marshal of World War II (used also Tatra's Czech competitor, Škoda Superb, in the field)
Andrey Yeryomenko – Soviet General and Field Marshal of World War II (received the first T87 manufactured after WW2 as a present, this car is now on display in the Tatra museum)
The Tatra 87 was praised by German officers in World War II for the superior speed and handling it offered for use on the Autobahn. The Nazi armaments and munitions minister Fritz Todt declared: "This 87 is the Autobahn car ..."[citation needed] It was known, however, as the 'Czech secret weapon' because it killed so many Nazi officers during World War II that the German Army eventually forbade its officers from driving the Tatra.[10] However, this alleged story has never been proven and is considered apocryphal, the order forbidding the T87 use being imposed only after several non-fatal accidents.[11]
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