Bonhams’ annual ‘Preserving the Automobile’ auction always features a number of museum-worthy oddities, and this year’s sale includes a fine example of one of history’s most unconventional production cars.
At the time of its launch, the Tatra T87 was unlike anything else, real or imagined, and even today its unique mechanicals and shape inspire ‘oooh!’s and ‘huh?’s in about equal numbers. The streamlined body with shark fin spine might look like something from one of those hilariously inaccurate 1950s illustrations of The Future, but the T87 dates back to 1936, though you’d never know it to drive it; technically as well as aesthetically, it was ahead of its time.
With its proprietary four-speed transmission and air-cooled V8, the T87 will do 100mph on the motorway and 20 miles to the gallon at 60mph. The steering is light, the cabin comfortable and the ride good. No wonder German military officers were so fond of it. For the sake of balance, however, (no pun intended) we should point out that the T87 is a touch tail-heavy… Writer Gordon Wilkins noted that ‘it produces in the driver the uneasy exhilaration which may be got from shampooing a lion’. Just something to bear in mind before you drop $ 90,000-110,000 on this lovely, sympathetically refurbished 1948 car.
For more information on the sale (6 October) and a full list of consignments, click here.
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