Tatra 603

The Tatra 603 is a large rear-engined luxury car that the Czechoslovak company Tatra produced from 1956 to 1975, continuing the line of streamlined Tatra saloons that began with the Tatra 77. In Socialist Czechoslovakia it was reserved for senior party officials and factory directors, and roughly a third of output was exported to allied countries such as Cuba and China. Designers led by Frantisek Kardaus and Vladimir Popelar began it in secret as a project called Valuta, and it used the 2.5-litre air-cooled V8 already proven in the late Tatra 87. Three versions followed one another, the T603, the 2-603 with four headlamps and a revised dashboard, and an unofficial third series with flush headlamps and disc brakes. Cars took part in rallies and in the Marathon de la Route. 20,422 were built, mostly by hand, before the Tatra 613 replaced it in 1974.