CarBrandLogos archive · Tatra · 1923

TatraTatra 11

A backbone tube, swing axles and an air-cooled twin: the template for sixty years.

Photo: No machine-readable author provided. KapitanT assumed (based on copyright claims · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Tatra history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Tatra 11, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Hans Ledwinka joined Tatra with strong ideas about how a car should be built and, in 1923, was allowed to build one his way. Instead of a conventional ladder frame, the Tatra 11 used a large-diameter steel tube running the length of the car. The engine bolted to the front of it, the final drive housing formed part of it, and the rear wheels were carried on swinging half-axles that pivoted from that centre casing.

T11 cabrio red · Dr. Killer · CC BY 2.5

Design and engineering

The advantages were real, particularly on the unpaved roads of central Europe. The tube gave torsional stiffness that a ladder frame could not, the swing axles kept the wheels on the ground over broken surfaces, and the whole assembly sealed the driveline against dust and water. The 1,056 cc air-cooled flat-twin needed no radiator and could not freeze, which mattered in a Czechoslovak winter.

1923Tatra T-11 · dave_7 · CC BY 2.0

In production

About ten thousand were built between 1923 and 1927 before the Tatra 12 succeeded it. The importance is what followed: the backbone chassis and swing axles became Tatra's signature and remain in the company's heavy trucks today, and Ledwinka's thinking on chassis, air cooling and rear engines ran directly into the aerodynamic cars of the 1930s and, by a route much argued over, into the Volkswagen Beetle.

At a glance