History
One of a dozen or so Tatraplans officially exported to Australia in 1952 after receiving positive reviews at the 1951 Melbourne Motor Show. The car was first restored in the early 1980s, was purchased by the York Motor Museum in 1986 and spent the next thirty years as a static exhibit there. As part of a rationalization of the collection, the Tatra was put up for sale in 2014, when I purchased it. It took about three years to get the car back in a roadworthy condition due to lack of use. The car has a rebuilt gearbox, electrics, carbs rebuilt, brakes refurbished and has been repainted. The car is now regularly driven and shown at classic motoring events in Perth.
Modifications
The car has been restored to running condition. Lack of use over many years resulted in most of the rubber seals, hoses and cables deteriorating. These were replaced, the brakes rebuilt, the carburetors needed to be completely rebuilt, timing and ignition system had been messed about with and was put back in order, electrics were refreshed where necessary and the original semaphores, which were broken and irreparable, were replaced with repro-VW semaphores. The most difficult item to repair was the gearbox as spare parts are impossible to find these days. Three old gearboxes were sourced to provide parts. Although not an entirely satisfactory result, the gearbox now works. The car was stripped and repainted to silver, the colour the car was painted in 1983. This exercise revealed the car was originally dark green. Although Tatras are routinely painted silver these days, this was not a commonly used original colour. Most Tatraplans left the factory black.
