This is a Tatra T87. It was built in 1941 in what is now the Czech Republic. The basic design dates back to the mid Thirties. It is powered by an air-cooled V8 engine mounted behind the rear axle. The suspension is all independent and the body has exceptionally low aerodynamic drag. It was the result of some of the most original and creative thinking ever applied to a car. Aspects of the design were copied by Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, General Motors and others. It challenged peoples' ideas of how a car should work and what it should look like. The engineers at Tatra were trying to create a car that was modern on all levels - from the way the suspension interacted with the road to how the body cut through the air. For this reason the Tatra looked like nothing before it. Most luxury car makers at the time were content to mount a great big engine to a chassis and body that wasn't very far removed from a horse-drawn carriage. Tatra cast of these nineteenth century ways of thinking and made a cars that could work on the autobahns and freeways of the modern world.
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