The Tatra Around the World 2 expedition will continue after a six-month break forced by the Covid-19 pandemic, its members announced in a press release on Sunday. The expedition will head for Africa in the spring. This entails a small change of plan since the expedition was originally supposed to continue in Asia, but the organizers say they fear border closures in the region.
The expedition, which left Prague in February, crossed the Balkans before getting stuck in Turkey during the first wave of Covid-19. After three months they managed to get to Iran where the team spent another 90 days before they were forced to return to Prague.
The expedition now wants to pass through ten African countries before moving on to South, Central and North America. Its plans will depend on the development of the pandemic.
The Tatra Around the World 2 expedition aims to cover 270,000 kilometres across 70 countries and five continents over a period of three years.
The project is a follow-up on a similar expedition undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s and one of its aims was to promote Czech industry abroad.
SLOVAK SHOT – An unexpected technical defect thwarted the arrival of the national technical monument‼ ️
The ceremonial event was to take place today on the occasion of the arrival of the motor car M290.002 after two years of renovation in the new pavilion in Kopřivnice????
After completing all renovations, the missile was assembled and subjected to operational tests, which are to confirm that it will be able to repeat safe operation, even when reaching a maximum design speed of 130 km / h. Unfortunately, during Sunday’s test, the rubber, so-called Hardy couplings were damaged, which ensure a flexible connection of coaxial shafts, transmitting torque from the drive units to the chassis
Due to the fact that it is a historical exhibit, using today’s not commonly used design solutions, thorough operational tests are the only way to prevent possible future failures.
The repair will take several weeks.
However, all evil may be good for something. Due to the current situation with coronavirus, the event would be very intimate only with invited guests, as the limit of persons according to government regulations is only 5️⃣0️⃣
The new date of arrival has not yet been set, but it will be the turn of February and March 2021. We firmly believe that public participation will take place on this date and it will be a dignified event that this unique hybrid motor train deserves????
Thank you all for your understanding and we will inform you about further details
On its way to the paintshop….
SLOVENSKA STRELA – An unexpected technical defect thwarted the arrival of the national technical monument‼ ️
The ceremonial event was to take place today, December 15th 2020, on the occasion of the arrival of the motor car M290.002 after two years of renovation in the new pavilion in Kopřivnice
After completing all renovations, the missile was assembled and subjected to operational tests, which are to confirm that it will be able to repeat safe operation, even when reaching a maximum design speed of 130 km / h. Unfortunately, during Sunday’s test, the rubber, so-called Hardy couplings were damaged, which ensure a flexible connection of coaxial shafts, transmitting torque from the drive units to the chassis
Due to the fact that it is a historical exhibit, using today’s not commonly used design solutions, thorough operational tests are the only way to prevent possible future failures.
The repair will take several weeks.
However, all evil may be good for something. Due to the current situation with coronavirus, the event would be very intimate only with invited guests, as the limit of persons according to government regulations is only 5️⃣0️⃣
The new date of arrival has not yet been set, but it will be the turn of February and March 2021. We firmly believe that public participation will take place on this date and it will be a dignified event that this unique hybrid motor train deserves????
Thank you all for your understanding and we will inform you about further details.
Source: Tatra.cz
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGV2g_hcWdQ
The remarkably advanced product of communist Czechoslovakia was produced for 20 years and was created in tens of thousands of pieces. However, the completely original version with three lights in the front mask is very rare.
The former flowering of Czechoslovak engineering called Tatra 603 began to be born in Kopřivnice in 1955. For the next twenty years, the company produced cars that fell into the hands of a number of important people from all over the world . Even the more advanced states, unencumbered by the communist establishment, admired what a small Central European country could produce; nothing comparable arose at the time in any of the surrounding Soviet satellites.
The communist government of its time needed representative passenger cars, and in 1953 it decided to supplement the state fleet with cars from Kopřivnice. The company’s management was given the task of developing and producing properly luxurious large limousines in the gallows deadline – Tatra had only 12 months to get the first results. This is too short a time for it to be reasonably possible to project the drawings into the first prototypes, but the Communists have never bothered with such things.
However, the industrial artist František Kardaus and the head of the design office of the carmaker Vladimír Popelář were not afraid of such a date, as they could pull out car designs from the drawer, which they gave rise to in their free time for their own pleasure in previous years. They developed a project for a car with a rounded body, following on from the previous Tatraplan and yet walking its own path. The first mobile specimen of the Tatra 603-1 was created in 1955 and in 1956 another nine pieces were manually assembled in the factory hall.
A year later, serial production was ceremoniously launched. Especially Western journalists could not believe what was created in Czechoslovakia at that time, when one copy of the T 603-1 was saddled by the Czechoslovak team at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1958. And Tatra shone with the car at EXPU 1958 in Brussels.
The demand for the car was huge, but the first evolution of the Tatra 603 got outside Czechoslovakia only a handful. Even ordinary people in our country did not have a chance to get to the car, because it was made exclusively for party officials in high positions and their friendly counterparts. By 1963, when the second evolution of the car came, only a few thousand cars were built, most of which did not exist for a long time.
Today, the rare first evolution produced before 1959 is characterized mainly by three headlights in the middle of the front grille, which later had to be replaced by four in order for the car to meet applicable standards. The original versions are so highly sought after and one of them has now appeared in very good condition on sale in Slovakia in Dunajská Streda. It was there that the perfect black specimen from 1958 got in its original condition with the original exterior and all parts to this day. It looks really very good, as you can see on the source link, only the interior has been renovated according to the owner.
The current owner is obviously well aware of the rarity he puts into circulation, as he repeatedly mentions serial number 725 – that’s an early piece. For a polished car with an air-cooled V8 with a volume of 2.5 liters and a wheelbase of 2,750 millimeters with the original manufacturer’s label, it requires CZK 2.55 million. This makes this T603 one of the most expensive Czech cars ever on sale.
As we have already mentioned, the condition corresponds to the one mentioned. Despite the original condition, the car “suffers” only an insignificant patina, we do not see any scratches on the paint, only the engine apparently lost part of the 95 horses, which at one time managed to start it up to 170 km / h. However, the high price tag is justified by the uniqueness of the first 603 from the point of view of the history of Czechoslovak motoring – the very three lights in the middle are a sign of something unique. However, only a few cars in history have successfully afforded to place the headlights in other than usual places for them.
https://www.autoforum.cz/zajimavosti/k-mani-je-vzacna-puvodni-tatra-603-s-trojici-svetel-originalni-vuz-c-725-stoji-majlant/
The vehicle is intended to be the base platform for a wide variety of specialized variants. It is envisaged initially as a battery or platoon level command vehicle for multiple rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers
https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45219
Tatra’s idea was even advertised across the Atlantic!
The car had “sleep seats” for two, an awning and did not need a trailer!
Testing the camping lay-out on the first model T57, with characteristic “Iron” nose
