DTW comes across a perennial favourite
For sale from Auta Motol in Prague, this Tatra 603-2 might have had several keepers over half a century but qualifies as secondhand having done just 1,900 km since restoration. DTW have lusted after these cars since first encountering them in the then Czechoslovakia back in Communist days. Like the Citroen DS, they are unfortunately popular as fashion accessories among those whose motoring enthusiasm is slight. This not only pushes up prices, but can mean that a restoration is no more than skin deep.
We have no reason to believe that is the case with this particular example on offer at 35,900 Euros and, if it is mechanically perfect, then this is what you might have to pay now for a car you could have picked up ten years ago for well under 10,000 Euros. Is it worth it? Well, if you want a Tatra, there isn’t really an alternative unless you stretch a Beetle and bung a Porsche flat 6 in the back, so you pay what they ask. Someone else has a neglected looking one in a field at 9,000 Euros but, unless you are keen on DIY and don’t cost your own time, the above might be the better deal.
The same dealer is also offering Tatra’s final model, a rare 1996 T700, for 49,000 Euros but, at 175,600 km I’d go for the older car.
Driven To Write 
What a beauty! Money no object, I would snap that up for my fantasy garage, then enjoy gently motioning it (driving seems the wrong word) down a country lane of a fine summer’s evening.
Indeed. On this ‘historic’ day for the not-so-United Kingdom, it is maybe apt to ask what Socialism has ever given us. Well, many things, of course, but even if you don’t value any of them in the least, there will always be the Tatra T603.
Hmmm. It´s a bit demoralising, to be honest. Nice car – but surely more a product of Communism? Or perhaps produced despite communism.
Well, the concept pre-dates Communism, but the T603 was a new model produced entirely under The Communist leadership, as was the Vignale bodied T613. So it’s clear that style, quirkiness and ingenuity were not squashed under the leaden hand of bureaucracy as they were in East Germany and the USSR.
Wow! The silver colour is a bit on the bland side, although very well suited to the Tatra’s shapes, but the interior colours more than make up for this (as do the ones of the engine, by the way). Too bad I don’t have time, money or space for this exceptional piece of non-mainstream engineering.