Tatra 97

The Tatra 97 is a mid-size Czechoslovak car that Tatra built at Koprřivnice in Moravia from 1936 to 1939. It was introduced alongside the Tatra 87 as a smaller sibling to the V8-powered 77 and 87, with the same air-cooled rear engine layout and a streamlined fastback four-door body, but it used a flat-four engine of 1,759 cc and 40 horsepower, good for about 130 km/h. It is told apart from the larger cars by its two headlamps and one-piece windscreen. Only 508 were made. Production ended in 1939, after the German annexation of the Sudetenland, possibly to avoid comparison with the Volkswagen KdF-Wagen, whose layout it closely resembled. Tatra sued Porsche over the resemblance, and Volkswagen settled the claim in 1965 with a payment of one million marks. The post-war Tatra 600 Tatraplan replaced it.