Great Car Wars: The Czech Tatra T97 & The Volkswagen

Few people know how the 1936 Czech Tatra T97 was actually the basis the famous first Volkswagen cars. In Germany, Porsche was under great pressure from Hitler to quickly design an automobile for the masses by the Hitler government. It was one of the promises of the Hitler regime to promise an affordable car to every family as this 1939 Nazi propaganda poster illustrates. Essentially it says that for "5 marks a week a worker could have their car to ride in".

However, Porsche lifted too much of the design of the T97 to suit Czech automaker Tatra, and the company sued Porsche for infringement of the design. When Porsche was willing to settle with Tatra, Hitler intervened and settled the matter by invading Czechoslovakia. Further complicating the matter was the Soviet invasion of the East at the end of the war. However, in 1961 Porsche managed to settle the legal matter with Tatra by paying the company a settlement sum of 3 million marks and the drawn-out legal matter finally settled.

Interestingly, the Communist government that took over Czechoslovakia after the war quickly ended the T97 in favor of some cars that looked decidedly more "Communistic" in design. However, with the fall of the Iron Curtain Tatra continued to produced the very best cars of any former Eastern Bloc nation. Sadly, in 1999 Tatra stopped building automobiles, but continues to build trucks and four wheel drive type vehicles.

Few understand how Tatra was such a great brand that even Germany once ripped-off their designs. Czechoslovakia has always had cutting edge technology, despite serious political problems due to the war or the Russian invasion.