From 1921 onwards, Tatra’s range of road cars came under the direction of the legendary engineer Hans Ledwinka, who had returned to the company. The range was essentially divided between luxury models and mid-range two-door cars fitted with air-cooled engines. Among the latter were the Models 11 and 12, with horizontally opposed twin-cylinder engines in the 1920s, and, from 1932, a new model known as the Type 57, featuring independent suspension and an air-cooled flat-four engine with 1,155cc and either 18 or 20 horsepower. It is worth noting that from 1936 a militarised version, the T 57A, was produced for the Czechoslovak army.
In 1938, Tatra replaced the Type 57A with the 57B. For the new model, engine capacity was increased to 1,256cc and output rose to 25 horsepower. Shortly afterwards, in October of the same year, following the Munich Agreement, the Germans annexed the Sudetenland and, in March 1939, occupied the rest of Czech territory. As a result, the entire skilled and advanced Czech industrial base came under German control – including Tatra, headquartered in Kopřivnice, near the mountain range that gave the brand its name.
Eager to make use of anything that could serve the war effort, the Germans saw in the militarised version of the small Tatra 57 a good basis for a Leichter Personenkraftwagen (light passenger vehicle) for military service. Thus, from 1941 onwards, the Czech manufacturer began producing a modified version with increased ground clearance and a simplified pressed-steel body in the Kübelwagen style, designated le. Pkw Tatra 57K.
This Leichter Personenkraftwagen was used as a liaison vehicle or to equip police units operating in the rear, both on the Eastern Front and in France, where, following the Normandy landings, several of these vehicles were captured and put into service by the Allies.
As a curiosity, one of these captured Tatra T57Ks, bearing the markings of the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) on its wings, led the liberation parade through Paris in August 1944 – none other than a Czech-built Tatra that had served with the Germans and was captured during the Allied advance into France. It was driven by Amado Granell, a Spanish Republican expatriate and one of the 2,000 men who had landed in Normandy and subsequently fought with General Leclerc’s French 2nd Armoured Division.
Amado Granell was among the first Allied soldiers to enter Paris and, in recognition of his heroism and the path he had taken, was given the honour of leading a column of the 9th Company of the 2nd Armoured Division – at the wheel of the most unlikely of vehicles: a Tatra 57K.