CarBrandLogos archive · Tatra · 1934

TatraTatra 77

The first production car shaped by wind tunnel work rather than habit.

The story

A defining chapter in Tatra history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Tatra 77, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

In the early 1930s aerodynamics was a subject aircraft engineers took seriously and car makers mostly ignored. Paul Jaray, who had worked on Zeppelin airships, held patents on streamlined car bodies and argued that road vehicles were wasting most of their power pushing air. Tatra listened. Hans Ledwinka and Erich Ubelacker, drawing on Jaray's work and on the V570 prototypes, built the 77 and put it on sale in 1934 as the first serially produced car designed around airflow.

Tatra 77 maquette 1-10 by Paul Jarray · Cimmerian praetor · CC BY-SA 3.0

Tatra 77A dutch licence registration AM-44-01 pic10

Design and engineering

Everything follows from that decision. The teardrop body tapers to a long fastback tail with a dorsal fin, achieving a drag coefficient of 0.36, a figure ordinary cars would not match for another half century. Putting the air-cooled V8 behind the rear axle removed the need for a front radiator and let the nose be shaped freely, and the headlamps were faired into the bodywork rather than perched on stalks. The backbone chassis carried it all.

Tatra 77A dutch licence registration AM-44-01 pic10 · AlfvanBeem · CC0

In production

The consequences of the layout were less happy. With the mass concentrated at the back and swing axles at the rear, the 77 could snap into oversteer at speed in a way drivers used to front-engined cars were unprepared for, a characteristic that followed Tatra's rear-engined cars for decades.

Tatra 87 · Hilarmont · CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Legacy

Nor was it a comfortable car to live with. The rear-mounted V8 made the cabin hot and noisy for back-seat passengers, the tail-heavy weight distribution demanded a light touch, and servicing an air-cooled eight buried behind the rear axle was work for a specialist. Tatra's answer was to sell it to people who employed a chauffeur.

Chapter 5

Only 249 were produced across the 77 and the 3.4-litre 77a, plus four pre-series cars in 1933, which made it a rare and expensive machine for officials and the wealthy rather than a volume product. Its influence was out of all proportion to that number. Ferdinand Porsche studied Tatras closely, Ledwinka's ideas turn up in the Beetle, and Tatra's patent claims were eventually settled by Volkswagen long after the war. The 87 that followed refined the concept and sold in larger numbers.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1934–1935

Units built

249

Engine

3.0L Tatra 77 V8 (T77)

Designer

Hans Ledwinka

Technical specification

The Tatra 77, in detail.

Production: 1934–1935 (Tatra 77) ; 1935–1938 (Tatra 77a) ; 249 produced; (+ 4 pre-serial in 1933)
Class: 4-door sedan; Executive luxury vehicle
Body style: limousine (Finned fastback, Cd=0.36)
Layout: RR layout
Engine: 3.0L Tatra 77 V8 (T77); 3.4L Tatra 77a V8 (T77a)
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Designer: Hans Ledwinka; Erich Übelacker
Assembly: Kopřivnice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia
Manufacturer: TATRA, a. s.