My dream garage #13: Tatra V570

The Tatra V570 was a car produced by Tatra in the early 1930s. The car, designed by Hans Ledwinka, was of a streamlined shape. The car used an air-cooled engine mounted at the back, to help with the aerodynamics. Ledwinka had dinner with Adolf Hitler on many occasions, and after one such occasion Hitler decided that the V570 was the car for his people. He set Ferdinand Porsche on the job. When he was designing what became the Volkswagen Beetle, Porsche admitted that “sometimes, I looked over his shoulder and sometimes he looked over mine,” talking about Ledwinka. Tatra launched a lawsuit, but when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia (where Tatra was based) it was stopped. After the war, VW agreed to pay 1m Deutsche Marks to Tatra in compensation.

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