Every car enthusiast knows her. The Tatra MTX V8 is the most tested domestically produced super sports car, even though it never got past the prototype stage. At the end of last year, all three manufactured specimens went to the Kopřivnice museum for a while, a good reason to examine them carefully. We are opening the next part of the series Unrealized projects by Václav Král.
February is not usually the month when the Tater Museum in Kopřivnice is busy. But it shouldn’t be the weekend, ugly weather and possibly the very last chance to see all three completed Tatra MTXs together. The last time such an opportunity arose was thirty years ago.
So it takes overcoming a certain feeling of awkwardness when the curator of the exhibition, Michaela Bortlová, lets us past the barriers separating the cars from the visitors, while other people interested in a closer inspection are shown apologetically outside the restricted area. Without this, Jiří Král and I would not have been able to go through the details, about which little is known. Unlike the history of the model, which has been described perhaps a thousand times.
“Dad and I proposed the design, I drew the frame and engine suspension, later as an employee of Metalex I also did other things,” explains Jiří Král. However, he attributes the main credit for the construction of the chassis of the prototype to his colleagues from Pilsen. “I would mention Václav Pauro, he has been with Metalex since its foundation. It was he who designed the conical springs that had to fit into the tight space under the front window.
The red Tatra was the first to be created for the autumn Prague exhibition in 1991. At the time of the exhibition, a white car was already under construction, which was bought directly at the motor show by a German businessman operating in Czechoslovakia.
“It was assumed that the second Tatra would also be red, so the finished laminate parts were red. But the customer wanted pearl white,” recalls Jiří Král about the car completed in 1992.
The Černá Tatra for an Italian customer from 1993 has only fuel injection and, above all, air conditioning, without which its original owner would have been very cramped. One of the things that was never solved on the Supertatra is the ventilation of the interior – the windows are fixed to the frames.
“It could be solved in such a way that the windows would open only from their center downwards, as the Dioss Rebel had,” muses Jiří Král, referring to the project he later worked on with his father. In one breath, however, he adds that such a solution was never considered at Supertatra – its sliding doors were completely flipped up, so taking a ticket from the parking machine was never a problem.
The impossibility of opening a window in the Supertatra might not matter so much if the ventilation worked. But the bodywork lacks an opening through which the sucked-in air can leave the cabin again. “There is a place available in the area of the door handles or under the rear hood,” says Jiří Král today.
However, such details were not addressed in prototypes at the time. Between the second and third pieces produced, there was at least a design change to the exhausts on the dashboard, which then directed the air more towards both crew members.
However, there are of course more differences. While the first two Tatras from 1991 still have a very raw, hastily assembled instrument panel, the shape of the dashboard in the last example, supported by leather upholstery, already looks quite luxurious. “However, the instrument panel starts and ends at the front, and its shape is no longer connected to the door,” Jiří Král does not spare criticism, perhaps also because he has a hand in its shape. Although the simplified solution was said to be the express wish of the manufacturer.
Standing there next to each other now, few would guess their age at the Supertatra. The original paint retains a reasonable shine, the taillights are not faded from the sun. Nevertheless, Jiří Král notices on the black Tatrovka that the screws that hold it are starting to show on the rear hood lid. “Laminate is a living material, just like wood,” explains the designer, adding that these apparent flaws only increase the car’s value as they prove its authenticity.
One could spend eternity in the presence of the three Supertaters and their co-author, but the Tatras museum in Kopřivnice closes at four o’clock and time is carefully monitored here.
Why were only three prototypes completed, when there were allegedly two hundred orders, as it says on the panel located in the exhibition? Jiří Král has his own explanation, but he does not want to share it. “I never cared about the business side of the project,” he says apologetically on the way to the parking lot, although it is clear that he regrets the fate of the car.
If any of Václav Král’s unrealized projects has stood the test of time, it is undoubtedly the Supertatra.
2024-03-10 05:04:11
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