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The Tatra T11 is an
automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...
that was produced from 1923 through 1927. It was the first Tatra model to use the unique combination of major components that are still in use on the trucks produced by Tatra to this day.


Origins

Hans Ledwinka Hans Ledwinka (14 February 1878 – 2 March 1967) was an Austrian automobile designer. Youth Ledwinka was born in Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria), near Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to ...
created the design of the T11 while working for
Steyr Steyr (; Central Bavarian: ''Steia'') is a statutory city, located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. It is the administrative capital, though not part of Steyr-Land District. Steyr is Austria's 12th most populated town and the 3rd ...
in Austria. He believed there was a need for a small car, and carried out the work in his own time. His design offered to the Steyr management was rejected. He left the company soon after to work for a previous employer, Nesseldorfer, in
Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The me ...
, which was soon to become Tatra. This was in 1921 and the development of the T11 started soon after. The T11 was produced between 1923 and 1927 with 3,847 examples made. It was then replaced by the T12, a development of the T11 design, with 7,222 being produced by 1936 when it was discontinued.


Specifications

The Tatra T11 had its engine and gearbox in unit, bolted to the front of a tubular backbone with an integral propeller shaft that also served as the chassis. Bolted to the rear of the backbone is a final drive unit that, using an assembly of gears, not only changes the direction and speed of the drive, but facilitates the movement of swing axles without the need for flexible drive joints. The T11's engine was an air-cooled horizontally opposed twin cylinder engine with overhead valves. It had a capacity of and was located above the front beam axle which was attached to it by a transverse elliptical leaf spring. File:1923TatraT-11.jpg File:T11 cabrio red.JPG File:T-11_engine.JPG, T11 engine File:ChassisT11.JPG, T11 chassis


Legacy

From 1931 the T12 was joined by the T57 with a 1155 cc air-cooled flat four engine, and the T54 with a 1465 cc engine of the same configuration; both models were based on the original T11 format. Only 486 T54 models were produced by 1936 when production stopped. The T57 was developed in T57A, T57B, and T57K versions, remaining in production until 1948, by which time over 27,000 had been produced, the later models having a 1256 cc engine.


References

{{Tatra models 11 Cars introduced in 1923 Cars powered by boxer engines Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars of the Czech Republic Automobiles with backbone chassis