Toront auto show pics
- Thread starter Jman
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I wish I could afford a Lotus Elise!
When we had our new car show in Tampa, I almost wet myself with excitement because they had a Tatra display! I got lots of pics, but I doubt anyone here would understand my obsession with Hans Ledinka's Czechoslovakian wonder-car.
When we had our new car show in Tampa, I almost wet myself with excitement because they had a Tatra display! I got lots of pics, but I doubt anyone here would understand my obsession with Hans Ledinka's Czechoslovakian wonder-car.
85 Cutlass Brougham said:
It's Ledwinka.
Anyway, Tatra has probably some of the best military-grade, heavy capacity, offroad trucks around. But I really like some of the earlier designs, especially from like the 30's and 40's. Didn't Porsche steal the design of the bug from Ledwinka?
jonnyslick said:
I knew I got the spelling wrong! But yeah, Porsche did steal the design from Ledwinka, and VW later settled an intellectual property rights suit over this during the 1960's. Porsche was going to legally purchase the rights, but when he told that to Hitler, Hitler told him to wait and he'd take care of it. Germany invaded (annexed?) Czechoslovakia a few weeks later, problem solved. In fact much of what we know as Tatra (Tatraplan, 603, etc.) was not designed by Ledwinka, but rather by engineers working for the communists after the partitioning of Europe. They built off his original designs, and the last Tatra car was built in the 1990's.
It's also important to note that Porsche did some of his design work before he ever saw a Tatra. He tried to build a small car working with Mercedes NSU or Zundapp (forget which) starting in the early 1930's. The two men knew each other, and discussed ideas several times. This takes nothing away from Ferdinand Porsche's accomplishments in my view, nor the accomplishments of his son, Ferry, who went on to found Porsche the sports car maker. It should be noted though, that the original Porsche 356 is basically a hot rodded Beetle, so in essence Porsche owes it's existence to Ledwinka too.
Was there last year for the AMA supercross, what a great city! Nice pics too! The camaro is growing on me, I still like my 02 ram but the new one looks pretty nice as well. Nice RS camaro along with mopar. Never get sick of old muscle. OCC anf their bikes? What goofs. 😛
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