Talk:Tatra 77

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IF YOU HAVE ANY GOOD QUALITY PICTURES OF T77 PLEASE ADD THEM TO COMMONS AND SUBSEQUENTLY TO THIS ARTICLE Cimmerian praetor (talk) 09:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Which one was the first?

Tatra T77 is the first serial-produced truly aerodynamically designed automobile.

Rumpler Tropfenwagens were made during 1921-1925. The total number of the cars was about 100. T77's were made about 250 pcs between 1934-1938. Both of them were streamlined. Building of both cars was based very much on handicraft but maybe you can call it "serial production" in the criteria of their era.

I just wonder why is T77 regarded the first serial produced streamlined car.

Or doesn't Rumpler's car fit into the criteria of streamlining? They were made in different principles - Rumpler used his experience in aviation industry whereas T77 was based on Járay's patent with a flat bottom. --Gwafton (talk) 20:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't answer that. I understand your point, however all sources state that Tatra was the first serially produced aerodynamic car. There seems to be consensus about that. I guess there is no strict criteria defining serial producation, are there? Cimmerian praetor (talk) 21:03, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Also I have seen several sources stating this about T77 and I have been wondering it. I can't really see difference between these two vehicles in measurement of serail production. Maybe I haven't completely understand what "streamlining" exactly means. It can be understood so that it is a vehicle which has a low drag coefficient, which matches with both cars. On the other hand, it can be a name of a certain type of art; a little bit like modernism, which doesn't mean just any kind of modern art, or functionalism in architecture; not all modern art is modernism and neither any functionally designed building represent functionalism.

Or maybe Rumpler Tropfenwagen is simply not known. Maybe it was just a freak of its time and forgotten after, but T77 (as well as T87) has been referred as an icon of automotive design.

Anyway, Wikipedia articles are based on their sources and the articles can never be more reliable than the material we use for making them. If the source says that T77 was the first serial produced streamlined car, then it should be ok until someone finds another, serious article in which it is disputed. But maybe it is still better to remove this part from the article, because it is at least questionable. --Gwafton (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Well if you consider the legacy of both models you get different outcomes. While Tatra 77 paved way to 87 and combined production of both exceeds 3300 pieces, and it also showed all other manufacturers that aerodynamics are the way to go, Tropfenwagen, although being a genius idea, hasn't left such an imprinton car industry. I vote for having this information in the article as long as it is not disputed by sources out of wiki community.

Could it be also that Rumpler didn't have backing of large car company and therefore his cars are essentialy all unique, not serial types? I know that the numbers are not so different but in Tatra it was much easier to say "OK, so this two weeks the engine department will concentrate on T77's motors, and other week on a different type" (and so on with other parts of the car) and therefore making it essentially serial manufacture, although as well with large amount of individual attitude and hand-work?

As Rumpler was driving T77 himself, he would be probably having good laugh about our little conversation right now ;) Cimmerian praetor (talk) 22:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Rumpler was the owner of Rumpler Luftfahrzeugbau based in Johannisthal, Berlin. His company built for example famous Rumpler Taube planes. Building of military airplanes was not allowed in Germany according to the Versailles peace treaty and therefore Rumpler went back to automotive industry, founding a company called Rumpler Motoren Gesellschaft GmbH for building of cars.

I tried to find information about serial production but here in Wikipedia is only an article about mass production which I is more advanced level of producing. I think it is enough for definition of serial production, if you are for example making five cars for which you need five pieces of certain kind of gears and you make them all at the same time so that you don't have to change the settings of your machines in between. I'm convinced there was such production in both T77 and Rumpler Tropfenwagen.

So I think both Rumpler Tropfenwagen and Tatra T77 were the same kind of production. When the T77's were made, they were not really serial production in Tatra's own criteria. They were very much hand-built. And that is one of the key reasons why Ledwinka wanted to develop T87; he wanted to make it more suitable for serial production. The body of T77 was built on a wooden frame but Tatra wanted to have a monocoque structure instead which is more serial-production friendly but needs more expensive investment. Ledwinka's cousin Josef Ledwinka worked for an American company called Budd, which had patented an all-steel structure and Tatra purchased the licence for this.

Certainly Rumpler liked Ledwinka's work, there is no doubt about that. They were old colleagues and they had been building together NW Präsident. Maybe Ledwinka even got a part of his inspiration from Rumpler and maybe Rumpler felt T77 is partly his baby too, who knows. --Gwafton (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining me the part about body structure T77/T87. I already encountered a few sources which state that T87 was first serially produced, but I didn't put much weight to them as it usually was in kind of popular tv shows rather than books. This could explain it. You seem to know fairly more than me about the topic, how come that T77 was waiting for a noob like me to write? Anyway I still insist that the article stays the way it is as long as there isn't source contrary to its current version. Cimmerian praetor (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a theory for the development of T77: it was an unfinished model which was made to test the reactions of the public. That's why Tatra didn't want to invest on the production machinery yet. T77 was also presented in a quite hurry, so maybe they had heard about other companies' similar projects. Many knew about Járay's patent but only few were willing to pay the royalties.

I am not very active in the English Wikipedia, I mostly check the articles to find the sources etc. Sometimes I make minor edits. I have focused on the Finnish Wikipedia instead, you can see many Tatra articles there. But the articles about the streamlined models are not very good yet. --Gwafton (talk) 21:44, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I added link about Rumpler's car to the SEE ALSO section, the reader shall decide for himself. But as long as majority of sources state that Tatra is first serially produced aerodynamic car, I insist that the article states it as well. Please don't delete it any more, unless you can cite numerous sources which would support your case. Cimmerian praetor (talk) 22:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Both Czech and German version have the same information (English version was formerly based on German one before I made it from scrap again) about T77 being the first serially produced aerodynamical car. Finnish lacks this statement. Other language versions are irrelevant stubs. Please get comfortable with current setting (Rumper's car in See also) unless you can prove your point through thorough evidence. Cimmerian praetor (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

No problem with that, it can stay there until we have got sources which dispute the position of T77. I don't have any hidden motives to try to prove Rumpler Tropfenwagen was the first one. The goal is to make the articles as correct as possible with neutral point of view. So I don't care if it turns out that I was completely wrong, I want to avoid of academic dishonesty by all means. --Gwafton (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree Cimmerian praetor (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

midsize 6 seater?

Is it really midsize car? It was six seater. The height was much lower than other cars of the era, but the internal space seems large enough to put it into larger class, doesn't it? Cimmerian praetor (talk) 22:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it's relevant to categorise vintage cars according more modern kind of classes. I'd prefer to drop off the definition. --Gwafton (talk) 10:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Some misconceptions

There are a number of fundamental errors in this piece:

"That led to putting the engine in the rear of the car, directly above the driven axle" The engine is not directly above the driven axle, but entirely behind it, as in most rear-engined cars. William Bushnell Stout's Scarabs from 1932 had this unusual configuration, but Tatra did not install engines between the wheels until the T613 of 1973.

"…no more need for a floor tunnel" ...but there's still a substantial central box-section backbone that just doesn't have a propshaft in it.

"…the oil cooler, battery and spare wheel were positioned in the front of the car" The two oil coolers are in the engine compartment, not at the front, high up and either side. This is confusion with the later T87, T97 and the post-WW2 Tatraplan. Two spare wheels are carried in the front compartment, partly for improved front/rear weight distribution.

"The frameless body…" The T77 and T77A all had coachbuilt ash-framed bodies (with Elektron B-pillars on some, at least) on a steel platform chassis. It was the later cars that, apart from ash-framed cable-tensioned doors, were all-steel.

"…only the door hinges protruded slightly" Most, if not all, production cars had entirely concealed hinges, unlike the subsequent T87 and T97.

At 5,300mm including the bumpers, and 1,700kg (1,800kg for the T77A), the six-seater Tatra is unarguably a large car by all but US standards, and particularly so back in its day.

There appears, also, to be a determination to persist with the "first serial-produced, truly aerodynamically-designed automobile" assertion, despite the clear precedent of Rumpler's Tropfenwagen, with its symmetrical aerofoil plan, very low Cd and slightly more produced at 100 v. 95 than the T77. Multiple sources are claimed, but these are mostly parroting earlier ones, which is a major problem with Tatra history.

User talk:Heckmotor97 (talk) 09:23, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Killed more high-ranking German officers than Germany lost in active combat?

The claim seems to come from a single source, and I find it highly dubious. The 77 and 87 were manufactured in quite limited amount, only about 3,500 cars altogether. I don't know how many officers were KIA in WWII, but Germany lost almost 5 million soldiers in combat and if even a minute part of those would have been "high-ranking officers", it would mean that thousands of officers were lost in combat. For generals alone, Germany lost 136 of them in combat, so it seems highly unlikely that one car could cause so much casualties as it was not that common. Mleppanen (talk) 14:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

This nonsense has no reliable provenance. It's just relentlessly trotted out by everyone who's read it somewhere else. Respected automotive executive, historian and former T87 owner, Karl Ludvigsen, dismisses it as "a canard" Heckmotor97 (talk) 15:10, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Versions ...picture caption

The well-known image of Übelacker standing beside a two-door car is captioned "Erich Übelacker in front of the prototype T77, a two-door coupé". This unique vehicle is not a T77 at all, prototype or otherwise, but a later T87 development mule with that next model's machinery housed in shortened 3-headlight T77a bodywork. Unless anyone objects, I shall correct this in due course. Heckmotor97 (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The article is wrong. Rumpler Tropfenwagen was a serial made and wind tunnel optimized car - in 1921!

Here you can see some wind tunnel models of the Rumpler Tropfenwagen. https://twitter.com/dlr_de/status/1130437658390482944 I don't want to spoil the article. I'm not an English native speaker and that's the first section of the article. That's why I would like to ask, that someone corrects the article. But even the Tropenwagen wasn't the first streamlined car. At least there was a prototype Alfa Romeo Aerodinamica of 1913. If nobody does this, maybe I will edit the article next month. Nfp (talk) 22:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)