Tatra - The Legacy of Hans Ledwinka

By Ivan Margolius and John G Henry

An Updated and Enlarged Collector’s Edition of 1500 copies has now been published. The new edition contains new archival information and research gathered in the 25 years since the first version was published. The book is published by Veloce Published in a limited editon run of only 1500 copies. It can be purchased directly from Veloce https://www.veloce.co.uk/store/Tatra-The-Legacy-of-Hans-Ledwinka-p153904391 or from Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tatra-Legacy-Ledwinka-Collectors-copies/dp/1845847997/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449758795&sr=1-1.

An interview with author, Ivan Margolius


Book Synopsis

The story of the Tatra company, which originates in the Central European country of Czechoslovakia, is one of great innovation and avant-garde design in automobile engineering. It is also the story of one man – Hans Ledwinka – and his visionary concepts which have become highly influential, although often undervalued contributions, in the development of car technology.

Until now, Hans Ledwinka's talent has hardly been recognizsed; in retrospect, he can be judged equal to car designers such as Benz, Daimler and Porsche, whose endeavours have been fully recorded many times over. With his revolutionary Tatra cars Ledwinka consistently pushed back the frontiers of automobile construction, and it’s certain that without his inspiration, the Volkswagen in its air-cooled rear-engined form would perhaps never have been conceived. This book suggests that Ledwinka played a greater part in this development than has previously been appreciated.

The authors have covered the full history of the Tatra company, which is one of the oldest factories in continuous automobile manufacture, dating back to the 19th century. By doing this, they have placed both Ledwinka and the Czechoslovak Tatra company back in their rightful places in the history of car design, and provided a fully comprehensive assessment of the influence of Tatra car designs and their inspired creator.

The text of this larger format 2nd edition has been fully revised and updated since the 1990 edition. This new edition also contains many additional illustrations.

When Hans Lenwinka passed away in Munich in 1965, his personal Tatra T87 was donated to the Munich Technical Museum, where it can be still be seen today. The Munich Technical Museum has an outstanding collection of vehicles and is well worth a visit.