The Prague Post Online: Business: 10 Questions

Reader's comments:

[08:54 31/03/2008] : Can't wait for the replica with current undercarriage! Go Tatra go!

PS: Is there a list to sign in for the replica already? ;)

Praetor
Olomouc

[00:35 12/04/2008] : I doubt that a replica of an old Tatra model built-off a platform from a major auto producer is a great idea, at least if his idea is to sell the brand to some auto producer looking for an up-market brand with a pedigree (i. e. a company like Tata, SAIC or Mahindra & Mahindra).

The best idea I can think of is to use the two existing uncompleted bodies which still seem to be for sale. Tatra, or somebody who has stock-piled Tatra automotive parts, should also have a genuine Tatra V-8 on the shelf. I know that some original, brand-new Packard V-8:s were offered for sale as late as in the late 1970s. The last "true" Bugatti was built from spares in 1962 (although it was not the original Bugatti company which built that car).

I know that the T700 was a bad, outdated car. But that is also the case with the Morgan cars. If you build a few landaulets intended for parades or weddings you don´t need modern handling characteristics or performance. The Daimler Limousine DS420 which was built up to 1992 was even more dated that the T700. Yet, that car is still popular among rental limousine companies. They are still used for weddings and funerals. Put some fender skirts, whitewall tires and a T613-I or T603-II style front end on the T700 and you got an expensive-looking limousine.

I think that Ecorra should be able to complete 2 cars at a far lower price than the Maybach Landaulet.

I don´t know what it would cost to build a few new specimen of the in-house 4.4-litre Tatra V-8. I suppose the company has been stupid enough to scrap the tooling. But if I had been Ronald Adams and had been interested in making money on selling brand for passenger cars I would have at least have made some calculations on the cost of building a few replicas of that engine. Perhaps some independent engine builder like Ricardo could do that? Without an in-house engine I think that a new Tatra would not be found in the regular section of Auto Katalog but in the "Exoten" section where the kit cars are found.

I also suppose that a buyer of the Tatra brand should keep the Daimler DS 420 equivalent until the brand has firmly re-established itself.

Peter Andersson
Stockholm

[13:03 06/05/2008] : Having done a great deal of work marketing and promoting specialist sports and coach-built vehicles (as well as some work for Tatra's trucks in the United Kingdom and Europe too!), I think that Andersson has a point with regard to the use of an inhouse engine.
Tatra may not make a profit making cars again - but it can use the idea of a limited production series to showcase its unique technology.
The real problem for any company like Tatra is that despite Volkswagen's revitalization of the Skoda brand outside of the Czech Republic, it is a name that is largely unknown in what could be termed the 'Old' West. Having said that, there is no reason why a series of re-built T613 or even earlier cars could be re-built by outside specialists and then sold 'as new' to collectors around the world.
A limited run of the Datsun 260Z was resurrected in this way some years back in the United States by the American agency for that brand, precisely as this kind of marketing exercise.
Tatra can't compete against the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW or Volvo in the executive saloon market, but it can offer something special to those individualistic entrepeneurs who are not worried about being pigeonholed by peer groups, and still hanker for the likes of a latter day Citroen DS or CX.

Francis Samish
Dorchester

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