Hans Ledwinka

Hans Ledwinka was an Austrian automotive designer ranked alongside Ferdinand Porsche and Siegfried Marcus as one of the pioneering figures of Austrian automobile engineering. He spent much of his career as chief design engineer at the Czech firm Tatra, developing a distinctive engineering approach built around a frameless central tubular backbone chassis paired with independent swing axle suspension. He was an early advocate of rear mounted, air cooled flat engines and of streamlined bodywork intended to cut wind resistance, ideas that reached production in landmark Tatra models built under his direction. Several of these mechanical solutions, developed years ahead of their wider adoption elsewhere, influenced automotive engineering well beyond Tatra itself, and Tatra continued to build on the chassis and suspension architecture he established long after his own departure from the company. Ledwinka was born on 14 February 1878 and died on 2 March 1967.