Tatra (company)

TATRA TRUCKS a.s.

Company type	Private
Industry	Automotive industry
Founded	1850 (original) 1897 (as a car manufacturer)
Founder	Ignaz Schustala
Headquarters	Kopřivnice, Moravian-Silesian Region, Czech Republic
Area served	Worldwide (except Japan, and North America)[citation needed]
Key people	Hugo Fischer von Roeslerstamm (designer) Hans Ledwinka (designer) Julius Mackerle (designer)
Products	Automobiles, wagons, carriages, trucks
Revenue	CZK 5.4 billion (2016)
Operating income	562,794,000 Czech koruna (2017)
Net income	CZK 482 million (2016)
Total assets	6,211,396,000 Czech koruna (2017)
Owner	Czechoslovak Group (65%) Promet Group (35%)
Number of employees	1,658 (2016)
Website	tatratrucks.com

Tatra is a Czech vehicle manufacturer from Kopřivnice. It is owned by the TATRA TRUCKS a.s. company, and it is the third oldest company in the world producing motor vehicles with an unbroken history.^[a][1] The company was founded in 1850 as Ignatz Schustala & Cie. In 1890 the company became a joint-stock company and was renamed the Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft. In 1897, the Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft produced the Präsident, which was the first factory-produced automobile with a petrol engine to be made in Central and Eastern Europe. The First Truck was made a year later, in 1898. In 1918, the company was renamed Kopřivnická vozovka a.s., and in 1919 it changed from the Nesselsdorfer marque to the Tatra badge,^[2] named after the nearby Tatra Mountains on the Czechoslovak-Polish border (now on the Polish-Slovak border).

In the interwar period, Tatra came to international prominence with its line of affordable cars based on backbone tube chassis and air-cooled engines, starting with Tatra 11 (1923). The company also became the pioneer of automotive aerodynamics, starting with Tatra 77 (1934). Following the 1938 German-Czechoslovak war and Munich Agreement, the town of Kopřivnice was occupied by Nazi Germany and Tatra's production was directed towards military production. Trucks like Tatra 111 (1942) became instrumental both for the German Nazi war effort as well as post-war reconstruction in Central Europe and Soviet Union.

Today, Tatra's production focuses on heavy, off-road trucks based on its century-long development of backbone chassis, swinging half-axles, and air-cooled engines. The core of its production consists of the Tatra 817, intended primarily for military operators, and the Tatra Phoenix (Tatra chassis with DAF cabin and Paccar water-cooled engine), aimed primarily for the civilian market. In 2023, the company plans to produce over 2,000 trucks.^[3]

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