Tatra enthusiasts who like to compete in meetings have to make up their minds. The meetings this year are spread across Europe and the first meeting, TFI’s May 13-16 Italian Trescore Balneario meeting (see www.tatraclub.at) is held in two months time. The meeting is quite promising with much attention paid to the Italian cuisine and I cannot think of any other Tatra meeting with a sexier name than this one. Those who prefer the summer however could choose the July 4 Aarberg (near the Swiss capital Bern) meeting organised by an as always enthusiastic Swiss crew (www.tatra.ch) or the July 22-25 TRD Bavaria meeting in Wemding for those who favour to taste Franz Josef Strauss’country site (www.tatra-register.de.)
In the First weekend of August we are all invited at the Tatra Register UK (www.tatra-register.co.uk) meeting near Dover, just across the Channel, so why don’t we grant our Tatras a seasickness (air-cooled Tatras do not throw-up!) and a left-hand traffic experience? In the last weekend of August our Danish friends are keen to see us all at the Isle of Fünen (Fyn) at their First Nordic Rally. Though their website (www.tatrovak.dk) has not published details yet, it has been confirmed that the August 27-29 rally is ON! In the traditional first weekend in September, all classic Tatras should head for the Beskydy rally in Horni Becva/Koprivnice. It is the mother of all Czecho-Slovak Tatra rallies with always rare Tatras showing up. Finally, to close the season, the Dutch Tatra Register hopes to see us all in the hilly very southern part of Holland for a tatste of Indian Summer on their October 1-3 annual meeting. (www.tatraregister.nl/agenda)
While speeding across mainland Europe we should not forget to visit the Jan. 19 – May 16 Ledwinka exhibition in Dresden (http://www.verkehrsmuseum-dresden.de/user_upload/bilder/ledwinka1.pdf) or this year’s April 7-11 Techno Classica in Essen (http://www.siha.de/tce_uk.php) featuring, as always, a stand of the Tatra Freunde International (www.tatraclub.at)
See you sometime, somewhere!
The classic car season started early this year with a Eastern bloc classic car show in a greenhouse in Aalsmeer, the Dutch flower and bulbgrowing capital. Soviet Scaldias, Ladas, Pobiedas,Volgas, East German Barkases, Trabants, Wartburgs and even a rare Wartburg based Melkus sports car all
showed up. Poland showed a Syrena and a Warszawa while Czechoslovakia was represented by several Skodas as well as T 87 and T 613 Tatras. Blessed by georgous weather that made the greenhouse an oven, the admission-free show also presented all kind of commie motorcycles and even East-German two-stroke speed boats.
Especially those who were interested in several Eastern bloc brands had a good time with senior Tatra enthusiast mrs Barends (photo) eventually finding courage to tell the East German Checkpoint Charlie guard the truth about communism.
(Photos: Bert Barends, Peter Visser)
A photo impression can be viewed at the organiser’s website:
http://www.pietpruttel.nl/Oost%20Europa%20Dag%202010.html
Ecorra is now offering new silentblocks for the T 603 front shock absorbers. Two units cost CZK 6.000,- exl 20 % VAT.
More information on Ecorra’s website:
http://www.ecorra.com/en/nahradni_dily/detail.php?nd_id=242
and http://www.ecorra.com/Download/katalog1.jpg
What could be the right translation for ”Slovenska Strela?” Until now the 
translation for the Ledwinka designed high-speed train in western literature has been “Slovak Arrow” in English and “Sovakischer Pfeil” in German though I have seen “Slovak missile” as well. In a comment on Tatra World’s “Slovak Arrow declared Czech national cultural heritage”our Slovak Tatra friend gagoftak remarked however that the adequate translation of “Strela” should be gunshot. Several on-line Slovak-English dictionaries say the accurate translation is not “gunshot” but the similar word “shot” or quite differently, “bullet.”
Arrow seems to be the wrong word, but is it missile, shot, gunshot or bullet?
Who of our language-gifted friends can help us with the correct translation?
More on the Slovenska Strela:
http://tatraklub.tatraportal.sk/strela.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovensk%C3%A1_strela
A new book by Marian Suman-Hrlebay on Tatra trucks was recently published. It covers the history of truck production in Kopřivnice 1919 till present and the first Nesselsdorfer truck and steam omnibus of 1900, a 1909 fire truck, trucks on woodgas, tippers, tankers, trailers, box cars and special bodied trucks like ambulances, vans, delivery tricycles and armored vehicles. Further, there are chapters on buses and trolleybuses, unrealized projects etc.
The book is illustrated with lots of contemporary advertisements, brochures and photos
Text is Czech.
Publisher: Computer Press
ISBN: 978-80-251-2456-7
Size: 200 pages, Czech language
Issued: 2009 (1. print)
Tatra World proudly presents its renewed website. Apart from the new lay-out it enables you to respond to all postings. Further, all TW pages have been renewed and updated, especially the T 77 Register Page and the Literature Page.
Tatra World Team: Kees Smit webmaster, Guido Smit webdesigner, Lise Smit Webstyling
The April 2010 issue of Classic Cars features a four page article about the T 603 engine, telling all ins and outs. The article was composed with the assistance of several TRUK members.
“It’s one of the greatest engines you’ve never seen – a compact 2.5-litre air-cooled V8 packed with intriguing features and used in everything from trucks to racing cars. It’s Tatra’s marvellous 603.”"
But there is even more. In an article on Zoltan Glass photographs, there is a photo on the T77 engine exhibited on the 1934 Berlin Motorshow.
The April 2010 magazin is on sale now. If you miss it, don’t worry and comfort yourself with the May 2010 issue as there will be a Tatraplan article in it.!
(Robert Keil, Kees Smit)
http://www.classiccarsmagazine.co.uk/magazine.php?issue=43&issue_territory=UK
Czech photographer Vladimir Cettl is fascinated by classic car scrapyards. Recently he discovered this Tatra graveyard with Tatraplans, T 603s, T57a’s and T 57b’s as well as T 75 long chassis models.
Have a look at these sleeping beauties!
http://11-55.nolimit.cz/ homepage
vladimircettl on flickr
Tatra chief executive describes last year as ‘disastrous’ for the truck manufacturing industry
Posted: February 24, 2010
By Philip Heijmans
Czech truck maker Tatra announced an estimated 2.6 billion Kč ($138 million) drop in sales for 2009 compared with the year before – a 45 percent decrease.
Tatra Chief Executive Ronald Adams told The Prague Post that 2009 was “disastrous” for truck makers. “The global financial crisis came quickly, and we had very little chance to prepare for it. It was a very painful crisis for the truck manufacturing industry,” he said.
Heavy truck sales in Europe were down 44 percent in 2009 according to a market analysis by auto interest group Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA). New truck registrations dropped 55 percent in the Czech Republic for 2009 compared with 2008, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, with domestic production down 60 percent and German production down 66 percent, the lowest in more than 30 years.
Analysts say the abysmal drop in sales last year was an industry standard among truck manufacturers.
“I think Tatra’s results are comparable with other truck producers,” said Cyrrus analyst Karel Potměšil. “The whole market was depressed due to economic decline, and all producers reported decreases in their sales or new orders by about one half during 2009.”
As a result, Tatra had to lay off almost 1,400 workers, bringing its work force down to 2,300 employees at its plant in Kopřivnice.
“The crisis most directly affected production workers because, without orders to build products, we have no work for them to do, and we cannot keep them around,” Adams said.
Last year, Tatra wrapped up the last 30 vehicles of a 588-truck deal with the Czech Army, which brought in a total of 2.7 billion Kč. Without further big state orders, Tatra suffered diminished sales. Potměšil believes the government did not do enough to provide subsidies to the troubled truck industry during the crisis.
“This segment wasn’t subsidized at all. There weren’t any programs like the car-scrapping subsidy,” Potměšil said. “Nor were there massive programs seen in Germany or other countries for the industry. … Truck producers were left to their own devices.”
Customer movement also slowed as trucks have longer life spans than passenger cars, and customers, including many fleet managers, simply postponed making purchases until the end of the recession, with European truck producer’s orders down 92 percent last year, according to Adams.
However, Adams believes Tatra has seen its worst days.
“The storm is not over, but the clouds are clearing, and we do see bright spots on the horizon,” he said. “Tatra operated at a net profit for December and January, and our backlog has stopped decreasing.”
Analysts also believe the market is beginning to see an upturn, although it will be a long road to recovery.
“Despite certain positive developments, I do not expect a recovery earlier than by the end of the year or in 2011,” said Jiří Zouhar, an automotive expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
For the time being, Tatra will continue to contract operations and costs on the level of orders and is considering divesting its daughter companies.
In the past month, Tatra has expanded its sales interests, tapping into the international market in order to find new buyers in the Russian, Azerbaijan and Australian markets, with Tatra’s Indian business remaining very strong. The company has also established a relationship with U.S. truck company Navistar Defense that could produce results later this year.
“We are also preparing to move into South America, Southeastern Asia, the Middle East and possibly China during 2010,” Adams said.
Philip Heijmans can be reached at
pheijmans@praguepost.com
Kopřivnice – as we have already printed in the Saturday edition Novojičínského newspaper, rail motor car M 290.001, known as the “Slovak strela”(Slovak Arrow), the government declared a national cultural monument.
Great news that the “Slovak strela” got on the list of national cultural heritage, where his steadfast position for many years and holds the Charles Bridge, St.. Víta, Karlštejn, the crown jewels and more than two hundred fifty more artifacts and objects, last week told the Director of the Technical Museum Tatra Kopřivnice Lumír Kavalek. “I would say that our response to this announcement was very, very positive,” approached the initial response to happy, and very exceptional, the fact Kavalek continued: “That Arrow was recognized by the Slovak national cultural monument, a unique kind of matter is but above all moral valuation of quality and originality of products Tatras. ”
Marking a national cultural monument, however, by the Director of the Technical Museum Tatra does not just profit and the possibility of financial recovery, “Statement of anything as a national cultural monument, in my opinion, does not primarily profit. On the contrary, brings more responsibilities, such as better care of the building. “Kavalek but denied that it received awards have contributed to the increase in the interest of visitors, not only on the railway itself, which is now before Kopřivnice Technology Museum, but also the Tatra as such. “We are putting forward the visitors a hundred and fifty years history of the Tatras and can boast that the products which have been declared a cultural monument, a sort of precursor of the national cultural monuments in the museum have forty-five,” said Kavalek.
Another important responsibilities you have with him this award brings, the financial security of artefacts. “Maybe it could be such a moral appeal to all of us, to us, hopefully soon, I managed to generate the funds that she was a national cultural monument, in addition to its beautiful award came as a beautiful coat,” he said, recalling the financial Kavalek intensity of care tatrovácké cars: “Reconstruction and concern for such types of cars or the like is really something.”
Also Kopřivnice city, led by its Mayor Joseph heifer was very pleased with the new reality: “Of course we are very happy, but she is quite fresh information,” he said in a telephone interview feelings Kopřivnický mayor added: “I think it is a great honor to have, in addition to all other castles, palaces and other large technical monuments in our country such monument. Then also in terms of importance and marketing of the city is very pleasing news. ”
Awards helped experts
Proposal to valuation and classification of rail motor car M 290.001 who once Brázdil tracks on the route Prague – Bratislava, the list of national cultural heritage initiated by the workers themselves, not only the Technical Museum Tatra, but help them as experts of renown from the National Technical Museum in Prague. “We initiated the 1999 Declaration Slovak shells as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic, which is now acquired a sort of precursor awards. It became a decision of the Minister of Culture in 2000 it was declared a cultural monument of the CR, as well as other already mentioned, four dozen objects Tatry, which we have in our museum, “outlining the beginnings of which led to obtaining an honorary place in the company of other major national monuments Kavalek. In his words, the uniqueness and originality of products and cars Tatry perceived as experts at the National Technical Museum in Prague and they just helped the Slovak shot on the list. I think that is their intercession she was the last straw in the decision of the government for recognition,” he concluded.
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