Eigenbau of the month: March 2019
Last month's Eigenbau turned out to be a rather unknown creation by a known coachbuilder. I hope this month's Eigenbau is really home-grown despite its rather professional looks. When I saw this picture first, I thought of a Pobieda M-20 or perhaps its Polish equivalent, the Warszawa M-20. Then I noticed the three-piece windshield. As the Tatra 87 is one of my favourite cars, I was immediately excited what kind of bitsa this vehicle may be, a modified Tatra or was just the Tatra body put on another chassis? Upon closer look you can see that the huge rear engine lid is missing, but the small rear window (usually leaving the possibility to look through the engine bay and the louvers to what's behind the car) was kept. I would love to see what this car looked from behind: Does it have a notchback? Is there a trunk instead of the engine bay? Probably yes, because the car now has a front radiator opening and the letters above the grille look like AULT, so the Tatra body was perhaps mated with a Renault engine. I doubt that there will be any information about this car in any book or online. The license plate tells us that this car was located in Timișoara in Romania. Timișoara was the historical capital of the Banat region and until 1944 the majority of the population was German, followed by Hungarians. So maybe the Tatra was left behind when the German population fled resp. was deported after the war. There could be an interesting history around this car.