National Technical Museum – Prague, Czech Republic
I love museums and the National Technical Museum – Prague, Czech Republic is no exception. They are a wonderful window into the past with collections of all sorts of things. Some of them are spectacular, not just for their content, but for the way they are displayed. The National Technical Museum of Prague, is one of those places, with an industrial look to the building from the outside, which I rather like, to the bright and airy exhibition halls inside, it’s got some style. Communist style.
Life was quite different in other parts of Europe for a large part of the 20th Century and I find it fascinating. The way they took to challenges and solved problems with the limited resources they had. This museum has quite a bit of that, and much more than I cover here, but this is Jalopy so it’s all about the vehicles. Cars, bikes and even a train, although I’m sure someone will point out that it’s a locomotive.
The big draw for me to the Czech auto scene is three big names. Skoda, who you will all be familiar with, MZ the motorcycle manufacturer and Tatra. If you haven’t heard of the last one, I’m not surprised. Tatra stopped making cars in 1999 with the last one the T700 being a heavily re-worked version of the T613 that came out in the 1970s. Also availability outside of the Czech Republic was somewhat limited. They did have the fuel injected T613/5 for sale in the UK for a while in 1994, they made only four of them, all prototypes.
So, the first thing I want to share is the absolutely stunning Tatra T77a and T87.
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The Tatra T77a, almost an aircraft on wheels had a 3L air cooled V-8 mounted in the rear and capable of nearly 100mph thanks to it’s slippery shape. The drag co-efficient was claimed to be 0.244. Efficient doesn’t have to look dull.
This was a development of the T77 which dates from 1933, the slightly faster T87 appearing in 1936. This car was much faster than anything produced in Western Europe, so the Czech resistance could outrun anything that the Nazis had during the way. They resorted to stealing them to keep up! Quite an achievement really, this car remaining in production until 1950.
Now, there was another variation on this. The T97, which featured a 4 cylinder flat four engine, two headlights and a single piece windscreen. This was a further development of the 1931 and 1933 T570 prototypes, which bear a striking resemblance to a certain famous VW…. Yes, ferdinand Porsche copied Hans Ledwinka design to create the Beetle, under orders no doubt. If you ever wondered why VW kept the Beetle in production so long and nearly went out of business in the 1970’s, it was due to a 1,000,00 DM settlement made to Tatra in 1965. VW were nearly bankrupt, eventually saved by Audi. Still, just goes to show the genius that was at work at Tatra.
Earlier Cars of Czecheslovakia
Next we have the 1925 Tatra 11. Something quite different to the T87, look at the tail fin in the background. The 11 featured a much more conventional style for the time, with a front mounted air cooled 1057cc flat twin…. Ok, this is more like Citroën, but their flat twin concept didn’t appear until a little bit later. It was the first Tatra and featured the backbone design chassis which would be a method used by another Czech manufacturer later on to reduce costs. More on that later… But, the combination of major components and their layout used in the T11 were, and are still, used in Tatra trucks today. Yes, they make those massive things, some of which you can see as support trucks in the Paris Dakar race.
Another famous Czech name was found adorning the front of this pretty little car. Jawa, known for its motorcycles, especially the competition ones, we find they had dabbled in car manufacture, and done it rather well. The company started in 1929 when an arms factory started making motorcycles, sounds a bit like BSA in England, Jawa motorcycles were the biggest selling vehicles in the former Czechoslovakia. The cars first appeared as DKW built under license before they had a go themselves. One of six built to compete in the 750 class of the 1000 Czechoslovak miles race which it won. It featured a water cooled two stroke twin with 26 bhp and could reach around 70mph.
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Presidential Transport
Now for something almost as big as the locomotive, a ZIS 110 Limousine. Produced by ZIL from 1946, this was essentially a copy of a Packard Super 8, a glorious stately thing. This was in the presidential corner of the collection after all. ZIL made this until 1956, when it carried on for two more years as the 110. This is another company that I’d like to know more about, a factory tour is not longer possible as they closed in 2012. They are still a going concern, they just don’t produce anything. Sadly in 2014 and 15 most of the factory which dated from 1916 was demolished to make way for a residential development. The front building was quite imposing and would have made a nice conversion I’m sure.
If you’ve noticed there is something slightly smaller and French next to it. Yes, it’s a Renault 21, this replaced the older style of presidential transport as Václav Havel refused to be associated with the communists and drive round in the ZIL. So a man of the people drove a rather respectable Renault 21.
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Czech Motorcycles
Motorcycles are quite an important part of Czech manufacturing history, Jawa as mentioned already was and is a world class competition machine marque. Still producing engines and frames for speedway to this day, and they tend to be pretty good.
The 500DT and 500DTC below do not look like they were from 1945, but are fairly typical of a speedway bike. Purposeful.
The next Jawa 500 doesn’t look too much different, to the others, even though it is nearly thirty years newer. There was one thing that stood out and that was it’s tyres, spiked tyres, suggesting this was an ice speedway bike.
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Jawa’s road bikes were well represented too, another 500 from 1931 was really quite attractive, in it’s unrestored form.
Another Czech name in motorcycling is Čezeta, famous for striking looking scooters from 1957 to 1964, which were built by the CZ motorcycle company.
In fact they are making a comeback, with an electric scooter which looks exactly the same. I hope they make the trailers too.
Lastly, this oddity caught my eye. Pity it wasn’t finished, I could imagine it with Mototracer cabin style bodywork. The Dalnik 250 prototype from 1942. With wide flatter tyres and even a steering wheel. It’s got a steampunk kind of bedstead meets Jawa engine (of course) look to it. Fantastic.
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Have a look at the rest of the photos in the Facebook gallery here.
Simon
