Tatra T97 - the Baby Pre-war Tatra

Ian Tisdale of the UK Tatra Register talks about his rare 1938 Tatra T97 and takes us for a spin.

Hans Ledwinka on his 60th birthday (1938)

Dr. Porsche, a famous German designer and Eliska Junkova, a successful private participant in many challenging races, in the company of. Ing. Ledwinka near Masaryk's Grand Prix circuit.

Director of the Koprivnica Automobilky Tatra, Ing. Hanus Ledwinka, a world-renowned constructor, turned 60 this year.

Both the name of the director, Hans Ledwinka and his numerous designs, simultaneously original and practical, are very well known in the automotive and technical circles of all countries. If you follow foreign professional magazines, you will often learn through them that various novelties that our director of modern engineering has achieved is about to or already has received the recognition that it deserves.

It is a joyful jubilee of persistent work by a technician who has been able to implement all his progressive ideas with such outstanding success as rarely seen elsewhere in Europe. He found a helper and supporter in general director, Dr Hanus Ringhoffer, whose magnanimity and understanding enabled the realization of his revolutionary constructions. The commercial success Tatra achieved was a well-deserved reward for both.

His most successful and most important creation for the public was the two-cylinder Tatra from 1923, with swinging semi-axles, a central tube and a fan-forced air-cooled engine. It was our first cheap car, and its design was then imitated by many. Its success was the beginning of recognition for the concept of the independently sprung wheel suspended to a central chassis, which had since been successfully implemented elsewhere. Of course, it wasn't the first or the last work designed by Ledwinka.

Even after this success, the experienced designer continued to work and raised a staff of co-workers who realized a whole range of other original designs under his guidance. Tatra has added many new constructions to its numerous range, the latest of which is very modern - 3 models of the Tatra car, with engines in the back and the fastest rail vehicle of the main railways, the Slovak Strela. In total, over 1,100 patents were issued from his office. And the eight-cylinder Tatra with a rear engine, as well as its two sisters [the Tatra T77a and T97 were all available in 1936. Ed], are indisputably the most successful examples of his modern design principles.

Ing. Ledwinka is an excellent driver, who has personally tested all of these vehicles, fully loaded, even at the highest speeds. He is insistent that he never leaves his constructions untested by his own hands. He is a great leader and has earned the credit for the success of all his ventures.

With the weight of his successes of world importance and countless recognitions of his exceptional talents in the professional press, Ledwinka remains the humble worker who never uses his name or strives for fame. He has gained great merit with his engineering work and focus on safety.

His name is permanently written in the history of motoring!

1939 Ringhoffer-Tatra Article in "The Auto" (Czech)

This 1939 article in the Czech "Auto" magazine is a work of adulatory corporate propaganda on behalf of the Ringhoffer Group. Truly, the Ringhoffer Group was a major industrial concern in Czechoslovakia, a small country absolutely brimming with heavy industries. The Ringhoffer's had made their fortune with the expansion of the railways across the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1860 by building rolling stock. They quickly expanded into complimentary industries. In 1923, they acquired Kopřivnická Vozovka, formerly known as Nesseldorfer Wagenbau, which was a competing carriage maker. Nesseldorfer was also an automobile manufacturer and in 1924 the company was renamed Tatra. Hans Ledwinka's creative designs received full support under the auspices of Dr Hanus Ringhoffer, leading ultimately to Tatra's incredible streamlined cars of the 1930s. The influence of Hanus' patronage is incidentally mentioned in the article, noting that car manufacture was not a profitable venture initially, but was pursued because it was the future.

The article also manages in the last paragraph a sly dig at the Nazi takeover of Tatra earlier in the year and the behind the scenes legal tussles between the Ringhoffers and the Reichwerke Herman Goering AG, the Nazi front company responsible for heavy industry in Austria, Bohemia and Moravia. Company owners had the option of joining the Nazi Party and 'getting with the program' or finding themselves dispossessed of their company. As an important industrialist and board member of the Czech National Bank, Hanus Ringhoffer had joined the Nazi Party at the time of the Anschluss. He did not appreciate being strong-armed out of this company and resisted the nationalisation after the Anschluss in 1938. When the Germans seized the Sudetenland in 1939, one of their first acts was to shutter the Tatra company. Ringhoffer responded by calling on powerful friends - up to and including Adolf Hitler - to influence matters. Although he was not able to avoid the incorporation of the Ringhoffer-Tatra Group into the Reichwerkes Herman Goering AG, he was able to secure for himself a seat on the supervisory board of the Reichwerkes for rail and automobile manufacture, virtually making himself responsible for the management of all nationalised Czech industries. Ringhoffer was responsible for protecting Tatra, allowing the company to continue civilian car production - albeit in small numbers - at a time when virtually all German manufacturers were banned from building civilian cars, He was successful until 1943, when all Reich industries were given over to total war production and he himself expelled from the Nazi party, effectively terminating his influence over affairs in Nazi Bohemia and Moravia.

For more:https://tatrat600.blogspot.com/2022/08/1939-update-on-tatra-manufacturing.html?m=0 


English translation:

"A typical example of how great values are created by strength of character and the optimism of able-bodied people is the creation and development of today's concern ‘Zävody Ringhoffer-Tatra a. s.’ In 1771, F. Ringhoffer founds a medical workshop in the Old Town of Prague. The quality of Ringhoffer's products at that time is evidenced by copper pans delivered to the brewery in 1780 in Mirovicle, which has been in operation for a full 118 years.

Son Josef and grandson Frantisek continue to expand the flourishing business due to the progress of the sugar industry and brewing industry at the time. Namely, the latter brought the inherited businesses to an unprecedented level.

Prior to the year 1852, when the construction of railways in Austria were first being laid, Baron Frant Ringhoffer bought land in Smichov and built a new factory. This was a milestone in the establishment of Ringhoffer's rolling stock business. This favorable time saw the company expand from building one hundred trucks and special vehicles to one thousand per week to four thousand during the World War.

New orders from the country and abroad continue to increase the demands on the company, so around 1911, the grandson of Baron Frantisek Ringhoffer, the founder of the Smichovo company, decided to establish a joint-stock company with the participation of large banks and to exclusively specialize the company in the production of means of transport.

Wagons were delivered to the following countries: Russia, Romania, Belgium, Finland, Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Italy, Algeria, Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, India, Poland.

The quality of the Ringhoffer wagons is also evidenced by the fact that European saloon cars from the Ringhoffer factory were bought in large quantities for almost all ruling families.

By 1939, the Ringhoffer factories had exported 145,000 vehicles of all kinds to the whole world. Today, we also manufacture trucks and passenger cars, tenders, draisins, dining and saloon cars, street cars, trolleybuses, motor vehicle tracks [ie, tractor tracks], rail buses, special cars for the transport of beer, milk, meat, for military purposes and dynamo-electric cars, etc, such as the "Slovenskä Strela", a streamlined rail vehicle.

By connecting with Nesselsdorfer in 1923, a step was taken towards the organization of the large Ringhoffer concern.

The factory in Nesselsdorf emerged as a Ringhoffer plant from the small workshop of a wheelwright. In 1853, a workshop was established for the production of road vehicles and later railway vehicles. In 1897, the first automobile was produced. Back then, it was an act of heroism to build cars - you couldn't make a living in this industry - but the Kinghoffer’s knew even then what automobilism would mean. Production continued even at great expense [i.e., financial loss], because this was the way of the future.

In 1921, the development of a new car factory was commenced, which was constructed from the ground up and started operations in 1923. In this year, the small Tatra 4/12 PS also appeared on the market, which easily marked a complete revolution in vehicle construction. This method, first implemented by Tatra, with a tubular chassis, independent suspension on all wheels with swinging half-axles and an air-cooled engine - novelties that were then skeptically criticized and their application was highly doubted - are today a sign of modernity construction around the world.

Zävody Ringhoffer-Tatra remained faithful to the principle of building cars of durable construction and minimum dead weight that achieve the greatest performance in terms of driving and speed with the least fuel consumption.

After years of constant investment and adaptation and the establishment of a rationalized and improved sales organization, there is growing interest in TATRA cars from all over the world. This development has proven itself that after two years TATRA will bring two new streamliner types - a four and an eight-cylinder type - which once again set the direction for the constructors around the whole world in every respect.

In addition to vehicles, the factories also specialized in the construction of electro-automatic cleaning equipment for kitchens, buffets, buffet equipment, construction tracks (windows, frames, etc.), insulating materials, parquets, friezes, veneers, the production of Knorr brakes for railway vehicles, etc.

In 1939, the "Bacher" plant in Roudnice and Labem joins the concern. This plant was founded in 1885 by partners Jan Pracner and Rudolf Bächer. The "Bächer" plant mainly manufactures ploughs, ploughshares, cast-iron and steel castings, cast-iron anvils, presses and sheet metal working machines, tilling carts for fields. Individual departments were established: in 1885, a plow and cast-iron workshop; 1900 steel mill; in 1932 a machine shop and in 1939 a carriage shop. The plow factory produced about 1,900,000 plows by the end of 1939. Products are exported to 42 countries. Each country has a different structure and its own sales organization.

The Ringhoffers have not abandoned the quality of their products, and this is part of their outstanding success. They never looked pessimistically at the given situation and even though the wounds, which often threatened the entire company, persisted with their optimism and firm determination, they got back to the front line in their battles. They have always managed to choose competent and fearless collaborators. [ed. this a discrete reference to the attempted Nazi takeover of the Ringhoffer-Tatra Group by Reichwerke Herman Goering AG in 1938 and 1939]

Astute industrialist, as general manager Dr. Hanus, a true Ringhoffer, has to choose good thoughts and implement from them what will bring benefit. The company’s design, production and sales successes are a true reflection of the greatness of his character in our economic life.

Ringhoffer history: https://kulturcafeprag.org/2021/11/05/nachlese-ringhoffer-eine-bohmische-industriedynastie-1769-1945/

Ringhoffer, a German-Czech Industrial Dynasty: 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338797719_Der_Ringhoffer-Tatra_konzern_-_Geschichte_einer_deutsch-tschechischen_Familiendynastie