After the T87 won the NY Times contest as this year’s most desirable classic of the year, let’s turn our attention to the UK for another contest.
Now is your chance to vote for Britain’s Classic Car Of The Year, in association with Lancaster Insurance. For the past few months, readers of Classic Cars, Practical Classics and Classic Car Weekly have been sending in photos of their vehicles, all of them with their own distinct identity and fascinating stories to tell.
A panel of experts have whittled those hundreds of entries into a shortlist of 60 cars – ten in each of the six categories – that will now battle it out to earn the right to show their car at the 2010 NEC Classic Car Show in November.
Remember, it’s down to you to decide the winners! Click on the categories below to see the entries and then select your top two.
Ivan Margolius’ Â Tatraplan was chosen in one of the ten entries in the 1940s category. Please cast your vote choosing the Tatraplan if you think that is the one that deserves to win.
Voting will continue until October 8th 2010.
http://www.classiccaroftheyear.co.uk/classic_car_home.php
or directly to the 1940s category:
http://www.classiccaroftheyear.co.uk/classic_car_voting.php?cat=1#cce-203091646
August 17th, 2010
IN retrospect, perhaps, it should have seemed inevitable: the Tatra won the 2010 Collectible Car of the Year Contest on nytimes.com.
Yes, the Tatra. Of course.
The what? Read more here……….
July 24th, 2010
June 29th, 2010
Ronald A. Adams replaces IBM’s Ales BartůnÄ›k.
Ronald A. Adams, CEO of Tatra, the General Assembly on 10 June 2010 the board voted in as the tenth president of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic (AmCham). On Monday it announced a coronary in a press release. More…..
Czech text: http://ekonomika.ihned.cz/c1-44248640-sef-tatry-koprivnice-se-stal-novym-prezidentem-americke-obchodni-komory-v-cesku
June 14th, 2010
George Hopkins of Linthicum climbs aboard his 1964 Czech Tatra OT-64 amphibious armored fighting vehicle. Hopkins is currently trying to get the 15-ton behemoth in working order for upcoming events that feature old military vehicles. He’s a member of a regional club called the Washington Area Collectors/Blue & Gray Military Vehicle Trust.
The next time George Hopkins backs out of his driveway, he should consider selling tickets.
by Shannon Lee Zirkle — The Capital
After all, it’s not every day that someone attempts to get a 15-ton behemoth the size of a small cottage onto the road. The Linthicum resident still has pieces of fence missing from a previous attempt, but at least he managed to get the 1964 Czech Tatra OT-64 amphibious armored fighting vehicle out of his driveway.
Unfortunately, that was quite a while ago. The vehicle has been stranded for a couple years now with a bum engine, but the 61-year-old Hopkins hopes to have it in working order again fairly soon.
“You never know what’s in your neighbor’s backyard,” the Howard County computer animation teacher quipped while gazing up at the 9 1/2-foot-high, 8-foot-wide and 24 1/2-foot-long vehicle that rides on eight tires that are each more than 3 1/2 feet tall. “I’m just a big kid.” More…..
April 25th, 2010
December 31st, 2009
http://www.starenakladaky.websnadno.cz/Tatra-111-141-147.html
December 31st, 2009
http://auto.idnes.cz/unikatni-tatrovka-podle-ktere-okopirovali-brouka-je-k-videni-v-brne-1p5-/auto_ojetiny.asp?c=A091221_174708_auto_ojetiny_fdv
December 31st, 2009
(automatic translation with many faults) Hospodárských noviny Ronald Adams: We’re at the bottom. Improving hopefully come next year Ronald Adams, Managing Director of Tatra Koprivnice Mining companies again have the money, says Tatra director Ronald Adams. And it was, he said his company expected. Prices of raw materials and demand for them has increased so that the miners are increasingly bids for trucks from Koprivnice. The drop in orders to halt and Adams hopes that the Tatra could start slowly returning to the numbers produced two years ago. Then for nearly three thousand cars, this year it will be a mere thousand, one fifth of which is yet for the Czech army. HN: How to hit your trip to Abu Dhabi? Together with the army we have now completed the test truck’s middle class. I think it went well. We see great potential there now orders. HN: But there still pushing and your competitors, right? Globally against us is Mercedes and MAN, but the position where we have a very good. Since the late nineties, I go there in 1100 of our cars. HN: How many cars are interested in Emirates? Then 200 to 400 The last moment will depend on how much they have budgeted money. Get a contract in the military is important to us. How once we have the commercial sphere soon followed. When the car is good enough to him to buy the army, so it is good for us. HN: Do you feel there problems of the current Dubai? Nope. Abu Dhabi’s capital, because they have oil in Dubai do not have it. HN: Where else now looking for new customers? The opportunity we see for example in Saudi Arabia and Libya. There Tatra know well. Sell, where natural resources, because there will always be money. They are periods when prices are down and sources of finance are lower, but generally it is a market to which we focus. Price of oil has grown to a level at which companies can invest. I think that it now begins to improve. In addition we are interested in the Middle East and South America. There we plan to expand next year. HN: How do you try to fight the competition? In any market we have not lost their position. In addition to seeking new markets and new customers we need to reduce costs. But we must also prepare the company that nevyrobíme three thousand cars, but only a thousand. But again, be flexible, so if we had more orders could again grow. Lots of people work 80 percent of working time. She works three days and two days off. HN: Because of the savings will not produce said engines. Engines will probably make the time, but sometimes use water-cooled engines, and those we think about it. We need them more as it enters new markets and there have no idea what it is air-cooled engine. But we can produce more cheaply than you can buy. HN: Going to some parts that you have not yet produced their own, start to buy more? Not so easy. We need to find out who and how much it can do, then make a wagon ride on a sample circuit. CZECH TEXT: http://hn.ihned.cz/c1-39472530-uz-jsme-na-dne-zlepseni-snad-prijde-pristi-rok
December 31st, 2009
The definite look of the 32th edition of the legendary Dakar in Argentina and Chile was officially unveiled in Paris on November 24. Ales Loprais and his Tatra special will be at the starting line again, marked with No. 502. The Team is heading to South America with the well tested Tatra 815 4×4 special, which was already used at Silk Way Rally. Ales Loprais scored a solid podium placement, though having been initially outnumbered by a fleet of domestic Kamaz trucks. „We have placed maximum focus on all fine tunings including every single detail. The last two rallies, the bad-luck Dakar 2009 and Silk way Rally, provided us enormous amounts of technical feedback and experience. All the bad things turned up to be good for something. The preparation was to be responsible to make the truck faster but we still managed to counter all difficulties we had met in the past year. I believe it will be this kind of prep that will pay in the end. My feelings based on the handling of the vehicle are great. It is more powerful again, faster and more balanced in terms of weight distribution. We have made a tuneup of the damping, at which we benefit from four years of steady development. I think we are ready enough to be a solid rival for both Kamaz and Ginaf. However, the race is too long with very concentrated difficulty sections. Therefore, we intend to concentrate and a steadiness of solid stage results without any major drops because they are increasingly harder to eliminate,“ Ales concludes. The team is following the steps of the Silk Way also in a different aspect. Ales Loprais and Milan Holan (who knows the truck better than anyone else) will be teamed by a new navigator from SWR, Jaro Miskolci. „I have become enthusiastic for navigation and all that comes around it. I was a rookie at Silk Way but soon I developed my own system of processing all information, which is a necessity for every navigator. Also, other navigators, both Czech and foreign, provided me enough hints when needed. In the end of the rally, my feelings were superb, I could steer the truck at such speeds by releasing a couple of words. The cooperation with Ales was increasingly good and we managed to win a stage at the end of the rally. I also intend to prepare precisely every day, the roadbook must be all ready. Every detail counts.“ The truck is already well known to most fans. The developing team placed three years of racing experience to its design and construction. It will be taken care of by a crew of mechanics in teh bivouac, Radim Pustejovsky, Michal Ptacek and Lubos Kypet. The assistence vehicle is the Tatra 815 4×4, nicknamed Philharmony. „Yes, we are taking only one assistance vehicle this time but I think we are carrying more spare parts than last year. And their distribution is more systematic, too. I hope all mechanics will play their role well. In South America, almost all liaison sections will be run on asphalt. The competing teams are taking large service facilities but I think that Philharmony will be a solid venue for all of us,“ Ales concludes. The press car, Nissan Navara, will not be missing in South America, either, and so there should be enough news every day. The crew is rather traditional: the Dakar legend, Karel Loprais with his brother, Milan and team correspondent, Jiri Vintr. The fourth is Martin Skutek, owner of a partner company called Auris: a company that took partin the creation of the electronic system of the race vehicle. The starting field is somewhat reduced due to continuing economic recession. The trucks missing are mainly rapid assistance trucks, though, as many teams decided to rationalize on them. Of the main favorites, only Hans Stacey’s team is missing. Although Gerard de Rooy will not race and his father had concluded his carreer the truck of team de Rooy will face the Kamaz and Tatra in the hands of Frenchman Joseph Adua. However, all Czech teams have become stronger, and so a close battle of Russians, Dutchmen and Czechs is highly likely. As many as five Tatra trucks in the top specification will be at the start and the organizers seeded five Czech trucks between low starting numbers of 502 and 510. The ship carrying all the vehicles is not far from Buenos Aires. Upon arrival to the start city, the team will withdraw vehicles at the port of Delta Dock against the mighty flow of the Paraná river. All administrative and technical scrutinnerings will take place in Buenos Aires at the La Rural exhibition site. On New Year’s Day, the celebrations of the bicentenial of both hosting countries can start with the greatest rally in the world. The first special is on schedule for January 2, 2010. Of course the broadcasting of the Dakar will be provided both by Eurosport and by Czech TV. Follow the Loprais Tatra Team web site to get the latest update. Loprais Tatra Team for Dakar 2010: Race Truck – Tatra 815 4×4 Ales Loprais – pilot Milan Holan – mechanic Jaroslav Miskolci – navigator Assistance Truck – Tatra 815 4×4 Radim Pustejovsky – mechanic, driver Michal Ptacek – mechanic, driver Lubomír Kypet – mechanic, driver Press Car – Nissan Navara Karel Loprais – driver Milan Loprais – team coordinator Jirí Vintr – team correspondent Martin Skutek – „powerman“ Loprais Tatra Team Press Conference, December 16, 2009 www.loprais.cz
December 31st, 2009
