Air-Cooled Hemi V8! Tatra 603 Sedan
The Tatra 603 was a larger rear-engined luxury car that was produced by Tatra (a Czechoslovak company) from 1956 to 1975. Due to the political climate of the day, only high-ranking politicians and heads of companies usually had access to these vehicles. The first generation was built between 1956 and 62 and from all indications the seller’s car is one of them (we’re not told its model year). With a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine, this car is somewhere in Arizona and available here on Bid Fast and Last where the bidding currently stands at $2,000.
Tatra’s 603 was the Czech equivalent of a Cadillac or Mercedes and was aerodynamic compared to other automobiles of the era. It had a 2.5-liter air-cooled, rear-mounted V8 engine, quite different than the norm at the time for automakers. Because of their well-to-do features, the cars founded themselves only in the best of circles, allocated sparingly to heads of state. A third of production was exported to Central and Eastern European countries that were allies of Czechoslovakia at the time, as well as to Cuba and China. Sales to private individuals would rarely have taken place.
How the seller’s car made it to an open lot in Arizona is unknown, but there are actually two of them being offered. This car has a sufficient amount of surface rust and is weather-beaten, having been stationary for quite some time. No history or other information about the car is provided, which is a shame because there is probably an interesting story here to be told. The body looks to be salvageable with the blue paint peeling off all the upward-facing surfaces.
The interior is ragged out and everything there will need to be replaced or refurbished. If you were to save this car, this biggest question is where would you find parts for it? Some of the pieces are missing, like a taillight lens and a vent window, and you won’t find those in a store or U.S. junkyard. Perhaps the thing to do is to buy both cars in the auction and combine resources to (hopefully) end up with one good one. BTW, did you notice the old school telephone attached to the dashboard and what appears to be a miniature reel-to-reel tape player?
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Comments
I agree Russ, who ever owned this first was a heavy hitter for sure. Maybe a spy! That is some funky shifter also.
Hey Mike, upon discovery of the car, millions were spent to decifer what was on that tape. 14 years and 4 administrations later,,it went something like this,, ” Hey bigshot commrade husband, on way home from secret installation, stopping off at Dixy for mother in laws visit” ( inaudible after that)
From what I have read and videos watched this would be a fun to own car. Just plan your turns accordingly and don’t swerve for any animals that run out onto the road. The V8 sounds really cool in these as well. I would definitely keep the phone and reel to reel.
More “don’t lift” than “don’t swerve”; as long as you’re still driving, you’ve less chance of becoming a pendulum demonstration!
Yikes! Looking at this one inside and out, I feel a chill one only gets behind the Iron Curtain.
Perfect car for listening to sinister plan on how to capture ‘Moose and Squirrel’.
Former KGB car?
This looks like the inside of the movie car from Lemony Snicket…it may have been used in the filming.
It is indeed the car from that movie. Jason Torchinsky at Autopian identified it earlier today;
https://www.theautopian.com/theres-a-rare-tatra-being-auctioned-that-appears-to-be-the-car-from-that-lemony-snicket-movie/
During the war, Tatra was kind of a Czech secret weapon. The Tatra 87 reportedly killed more German officers than actual combat.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/czech-car-killed-nazi-officers-than-active-combat.html
Oh please, German scum? Take a chill pill, relax and inform yourselves. Your comment is a new low in the world of lows.
Yasser Arafat?
No thanks, I’ll take the mud fence. It’s prettier.
Saw the tape recorder, and my first thought was the quote, “C’est un Nagra. C’est Suisse, et très, très précis” from the film Diva. Turns out if you look at it closely it actually *is* a Nagra, a model used as spy hardware during the Cold War. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mryurigagarin/4189000112/ The “SN” designation means “Normal Speed” and the lack of an “ST” means this is a mono unit, not stereo.
Also that shifter makes me think “Put it in ‘H’!” from The Simpsons.
Maybe Putin has a “Pick and Pull” junkyard in Siberia?
Better check carefully that the phone doesn’t still have a direct connection to the Kremlin.
These are really pretty cool and well engineered cars. Unusual, you bet! I for one would love to have it.
Well engineered until you make a quick turn…or attempt to
The Tatra is cool, but I’m more interested in the White cabover behind it.
“…only high-ranking politicians and heads of companies usually had access to these vehicles.”
And the Czech buying public was grateful.
I had the only one in Spain for a while- noo-one else was interested and the Tatra 603 was a car I had always admired for being different. Boy, is it different and just looking at a parked Tatra can take hours.
However, one very short drive cured me of all that. Great cars for those who love difference and have no fear/imagination, but I was glad to move my car too a more appreciative home in the UK.
The Tatra has a very interesting history. When Hitler told Porsche to build the peoples car which became the VW. Prosche infringed on many of Tatras patents.
Tatra sued Volkswagen in 1938, but the lawsuit was stopped when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia during World War II. The matter was re-opened after the war and eventually settled out of court in 1965, when Volkswagen paid Tatra one million German Marks.
That dash is very un-603 like. We (Lane Motor Museum) have a ’58 and a ’64, and both have nicely-finished column surrounds and column shift – this looks more like a Panhard shifter, and the gauges and column are not OE either, I don’t think. Perhaps things changed in the later cars, they built 603s up into the 1970s, pretty much unchanged. The front end/headlight setup looks like it’s a T603-3, which many cars were converted to over the years. (they went fast, but had poor brakes. When a car got crunched on the nose, it went back to Tatra for repair, and the early all-glass 3 light noses and mid-period steel close-set 4 light 603-2s were restyled with the wide-set 4 light steel nose.)
FWIW, neither Tucek’s nor Rosenkranz’s books on the T603 show anything but a column shift, and only two styles of instrumentation – ribbon or half-moon speedo – and neither are like this one. It might be a full-on spy car!
I could be in.
Wonder if he accepts personal Czechs…
Hagerty did a magazine article a few years ago on how easy it was to tip one over.
sold for 168,604 Czech crowns ($7250 US) the sister car to this sold for $3250, not sure if they both went to the same buyer
how bout the one that inspired the folk’s wagon & SAAB designs?
The one w/the “bat wing” on some models (UC a lill on da rear of this’un).
I thought I read of a rear, bent8, air cooled, 2-stroke Tatra in the ’20’s or ’30’s (around the time he got Dr. Porche out of nazi prision)??
Looks like a car used by some high rank commie scum, STB (Czech secret police) or KGB.