After
World War II,
Tatra continued its pre-war business of building passenger cars in addition to
commercial vehicles and
military vehicles. The factory was nationalised in 1946, two years before the
Communist takeover. Although production of pre-war models continued, a new model, the Tatra 600 Tatraplan, was designed in 1946–47 by Josef Chalupa, Vladimír Popelář,
František Kardaus, and
Hans Ledwinka. The name of the car celebrated the new Communist
planned economy but also referred to aeroplane inspiration ('éroplan' means aeroplane in colloquial Czech). Originally, the 600 was known as the
Tatra 107, continuing from Tatra's previous aerodynamic cars- the 77, 87, and 97- as it was intended as a newer, smaller, and cheaper version to replace the outdated
Tatra 57. Tatra switched to a new numbering system after WWII, with all car model codes beginning with 600; as a result, the Tatra 107 became the Tatra 600. After two prototypes, "Ambrož" (December 1946) and "Josef" (March 1947), the 600 went into mass production in 1948. In 1951, the state planning department decided that the Tatraplan should henceforth be built at the
Skoda Auto plant in
Mladá Boleslav, leaving Tatra to concentrate on truck assembly. This was quite unpopular with the workforce at both plants: as a result, Skoda built Tatraplans for one year only before the model was discontinued in 1952. The Tatraplan had a
monocoque streamlined
ponton-styled 6-seat
fastback saloon body with front
suicide doors and a
drag coefficient (Cd) of just 0.32. It was powered by an
air-cooled flat-four cylinder, 1,952 cc rear-mounted engine. 6,342 were made, 2,100 of them in Mladá Boleslav. In 2010, in the
UK, the Tatraplan won the '
Classic Car of the Year' competition in the 1940s category. A modified 600 convertible with a Sodomka-built body was presented to
Josef Stalin by
Antonin Zapototsky on 22 December 1949. As of 2019 it was on display in the Technicke Muzeum Tatra in Koprivnice. ==Models==