Czechmate: 1974-1995 Tatra T613

By the early 1970s, the state of Cold War between the US and Soviet Russia had cemented itself firmly as the geopolitical status quo, and although détente between the two powers had improved relations, the East/West divide was still very much in place; this was immediately visible in the stark contrast of vehicles gracing the roads of each political sphere. Whilst the competitive free-market economies of the West had produced an incredibly varied crop of high quality, and often quite interesting cars, the few manufacturers in the Soviet bloc were, as a result of economic stagnation, entrapped in a holding pattern of ancient, state-sponsored official limousines and heinously terrible people’s cars (relatively few of which were ever actually delivered to their “owners”) that were all essentially built on wartime technology.

One such manufacturer was Tatra, a firm based in the Czech town of Koprivnice, and notable for both its ingenuity and misfortune. Having started as a horse-drawn cart business in 1850, the company began to dabble in cars at the turn of the century, and gained a reputation for being highly innovative, with early highlights including the 1926 T17 (equipped with IRS) and the 1934 T77 (first production streamliner).

Things, however, would turn sour; the 1936 T97 drew considerable interest from one Ferdinand Porsche, who was especially enamoured with its use of a rear-mounted, air-cooled, four-cylinder boxer engine. Tatra was understandably put out by this, but their attempted lawsuit was cut short when, in 1938, Hitler’s Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and essentially took over local industry. Tatra saloons were kept in production during this period, mainly because they were popular with Wehrmacht officers (many of whom were killed in crashes due to their wobbly rear-engine handling, thus earning them the nickname “the Czech secret weapon”).

War’s end would not, however, return Tatra to a free and open market, as Czechoslovakia quickly fell under Russian influence and became part of the Eastern Bloc (a series of communist Soviet satellite states made up of land captured by the Red Army during the war). Although the factory was initially nationalised in order to focus on manufacturing trucks and buses, permission was given to design a new luxury saloon, due in part to a growing distaste for Russian cars amongst Czech Communist Party personnel. The sleek new T603, initially dreamt up in secret by Tatra’s overly enthusiastic design team, was only ever made available to the party elite, and only exported to other communist states; it would stay in production, largely due to the lack of competition and technology behind the Iron Curtain, for another two decades.

It was not until 1968 that Tatra could at last begin work on the 603’s successor, and the Czech designers would attempt to make up for lost time with a host of mechanical refinements. The 603’s air-cooled v8 was retained, though it underwent a significant transformation; capacity grew from 2.5 to 3.5 litres, with compression rising accordingly from 6.5:1 to a more appropriate 9.2:1, and the existing pushrod valvetrain was replaced by a set of all-aluminium, twin cam cylinder heads. With all modifications completed, the resulting unit produced 165bhp and 195lb/ft of torque (up from 100bhp and 119lb/ft), a very respectable output for an engine designed to run on 76-octane Soviet petrol. However, the most significant change was not to the engine itself, but rather its location. Whilst still technically rear-mounted, Tatra’s engineers had moved the lightweight V8 forward so that only half of its eight cylinders hung aft of the rear axle, with the other four directly over it; the upshot of this new arrangement was a 44/56 weight distribution and a marked reduction in the wayward handling characteristics of previous Tatras.

The unimaginatively named Tatra 613 finally emerged in 1974, and looked like nothing else in the East. Its crisp new bodywork came courtesy of the famed Italian styling house Vignale (quite a feat from behind the Iron Curtain), and set the Czech machine poles apart from the fabulously dated, pseudo-American Chaikas, ZiLs and Volgas that had become the mainstay of Eastern Bloc officials. Like its predecessor, the 613 was not made available to the general public, but was used exclusively by aforementioned official personnel, and the infamous KGB.

Despite being conceived as a luxury cruiser, the 613’s ability in this regard was hamstrung by the lack of technology available in communist Czechoslovakia. The 1.9 ton, 5-metre-long beast had all the frills of a Mongolian’s living room, featuring neither anti-lock brakes nor an automatic gearbox (having to make do with a four-on-the-floor manual setup) - although it did boast a pair of immensely powerful petrol-fired heaters. That said, even with its fairly backward underpinnings, the combination of some nice leather upholstery and a suitably compliant ride quality, courtesy of semi-tailing arm rear suspension paired with front MacPherson struts, meant that the 613 was still one of the most comfortable things in the East.

For 1980, the 613 received its first upgrade, although to describe it as such is perhaps an overstatement; the 613-2 only differed from the original by virtue of an additional three horsepower, bringing the total to 168. It wasn’t until 1984 that the big Tatra would undergo any major change, in the form of a slightly plasticky interior and exterior restyle that stripped the car of most of its elegant chrome fittings. Designated 613-3, the update was most notable for introducing a couple of short-lived spinoff variants – the 613-K, an open-top conversion intended for use as a parade car, and the T623 and 624, a duo of 3.8-litre rapid response vehicles designed for Czechoslovakia’s emergency services and racing circuits.

In November 1989, Tatra’s fortunes were shaken once again by political forces, this time in the form of the infamous Berlin Wall being torn down, signalling the start of the two-year collapse of the Soviet Union and its many satellite states. Ironically, the removal of the suffocating communist system was no better for the small Czech firm than its introduction in 1945 – whilst the free market meant that ordinary citizens could now buy a T613, they could also buy a markedly more advanced BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or Jaguar. In short, Tatra had lost its comfortable, state-endorsed monopoly virtually overnight.

In order to compete in this radial new economic climate, the now ageing 613 would need a fairly substantial update. For the local market, this came in the form of 1993’s 613-4 ‘electronic’ – largely identical to the existing car under the skin, but stuffed with as many new gadgets the company could get its mitts on. The new bells and whistles included such highlights as a colour TV with VCR, an in-car phone, a refrigerator, a Blaupunkt stereo, and three onboard computers to run the show. The only major mechanical alteration was a pair of new catalytic converters, largely as a sop to the strange new force known as EU emissions regulations – the rest of the powertrain survived intact.

And that may well have been the last chapter of the T613 story, had it not been for a British engineer by the name of Tim Bishop. A former Saab and Jaguar employee, and offbeat car nut (with a collection including a Haflinger, an NSU Spider, and a Trabant), Bishop set out to bring the eccentric Czech barge to Britain through his recently formed firm ETB Motive Power. As was clearly understood by all parties involved, the much more competitive (and regulated) Western market meant that any possibility of success hinged on ETB MP’s ability to truly bring the 613 up to date; simply cramming in an entire JB Hi-Fi catalogue’s worth of gadgets wasn’t going cut the mustard, so to speak.

As the 613 was already a very dated machine, ETB MP decided to take its sweet time in properly preparing the old tank for sale in Britain. Naturally, first on the to-do list was an overhaul of the aging V8 (which could trace its roots back to the 30’s) such that it would meet Western European emissions standards, and ideally give the 613 a more impressive spec sheet; as such, the 3.5 litre air-cooled donk was placed in the care of former Lotus and Corvette ZR-1 engine guru Mark Berry. Under his guiding hand, the Tatra V8 (now internally designated ‘ecological’) received the inevitable conversion to multi-point electronic injection, as well as revised heads, cams, and a better set of catalytic converters to comply with more stringent emissions regulations. The sum total of all these revisions was a very healthy 200bhp, driven through a new five-speed manual ‘box (complete with dogleg first) - though a system that decoupled the cooling fan under full throttle could temporarily lift this figure to 220.

The modernising, and anglicising, was not simply limited to the mechanicals – the 613-5 was granted a more rounded, two-tone front fascia, which did away with some of the square-ness of the existing car. Furthermore, its interior received a complete, top-to-bottom overhaul, with the utilitarian plastic and fabric replaced by acres of leather and wood, and fitted to a completely re-modelled dashboard very clearly inspired by the likes of Jaguar and Bentley. Building on the tech-fest ‘Electronic,’ the 613-5 featured a veritable swathe of toys, most impressive of which was a multi-zone climate control system that could be pre-set up to a week in advance.

In 1993, the revitalised 613-5 finally went on sale in Britain, and was priced at a rather ambitious £30,000 – right in the centre of Mercedes S-Class territory. Throughout the launch period, Bishop was keen to point out the car’s unique qualities, likening the low-volume, hand-built Tatra more to Aston Martin and Bristol than the obvious German contenders. For a while, it looked as if this big export venture might have paid off; the development car was quite favourably received by the automotive press (Top Gear’s Chris Goffey describing it as “the epitome of individuality”), and as such ETB was cautiously confident in being able to carve its own small niche.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Despite all the re-engineering and careful publicity, the supposed customer base of left-field ‘eccentrics’ failed to materialise, and the British market flatly refused to buy the 613-5; just five examples, including the development car, crawled out of the Koprivnice factory over the course of its two-year lifespan. Almost inevitably, and as a result of the 613’s struggling form in its homeland, in 1995 American giant Chrysler took a 15% share in Tatra, in its attempt to emulate Volkswagen and BMW’s successful buy-up of penniless European companies. This ultimately futile union marked the beginning of the end for the beleaguered Czech marque.

The Tatra T613 was a once ground-breaking design forced to spend its twilight years in a vain battle for survival against a horde of objectively superior Western machinery. Despite the intervention of a handful of enthusiastic Britons, the march of time would come to overwhelm the majestic beast, and would eventually take the entire Company under. However, none of this would prevent Tatra bringing together all its newfound knowledge for one final roll of the dice . . .