Dobrodruzi Petr Horký and Miroslav Náplava in the Tatras 87 knew well that the actual distance along the main roads was only 1,600 kilometers, but the original route, not only the original routes, but also the fahrplan, as described in the 1937 diary of the famous world-travelers, Stretched.

From Lyon, they set off with their accompanying team, Horký, with Náplav through Vienna, Saint Vallier, Cote Rotie, Serves sur Rohne, Vallence, Livron to Orange, a town known from ancient Rome, then called Arausio.

PHOTO: David Ryneš, Mapy.cz

When we planned this trip in November last November, I thought that we were basically just a purposeful snapping of a route that could be offended in about three o’clock in five days.

That we go every day for a couple of hours, and then we go through the cities, we write notes, such as News.cz, and it will be done. But this erroneous reflection is just another proof of how easily one finds itself in the captivity of the current technological world that creates a skin over the real world.

Traveler Petr Horký above the map.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

When we have set some rules at the beginning, we stick to them. So we avoid the highways, where it just goes and where it makes sense – we try to copy the original route of Hanzelka and Zikmund as faithfully as possible.

And he’s hooing, suddenly the benefit of the new accompanying volley is blurred, because in northeastern districts and in cities with fifty at the speed limit, we are just as fast – or even slower. And the racing time moves significantly for later.

The range extends the way you navigate. Originally, we wanted to completely disable GPS navigation and go only by paper maps, but we encountered two obstacles: firstly paper maps are not about to get up, and when we were already asking for a detailed map on the several drawers, they explained to us Today they are not selling. No one is buying them. And you will not be able to get the current map in advance. Unless we just described them from digital backgrounds.

Car owners Jiří M. Pechan (left) and Michal Popov and his wife are studying the next route of both Tatras 87.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

The second obstacle in map navigation is the big cities.Their operation is so mechanical and fast that I can not imagine how we would try to stop at the pavement in Lyon, for example, with a finger on the paper. No way.

There is no place to slow down, at a speed that is now passing through the city, when no one holds the slightest delays (and the French have a wandering stranger’s understanding), it would be dangerous. So we leave our cell phones in the cities. I’m sure you knock on your forehead to make us think. Chacha, I’d be so smart at home with my computer. I even wanted a little to get caught in our own trap and the tensions appeared.

Under my leadership, this car has never been in the curtain behind someone who has to pull it!Jiří M. Pechan

But I did not realize how deeply the traces of state-of-the-art technology and modern mores of our comfortable existence were already deep in our lives. On April 22, 2017, at the start of the entire trip to the National Technical Museum, he declared that “… just give up modern conveniences, drop the navigation, drop the printed guides, add the flex camera and the real movie camera, suddenly the adventure is much closer …” I did not know how right I was.

Let me try sometime and bet on anything that you will eventually be surprised at how many dots we are already dependent on, how many habits have changed, and how many operations in our lives are driven by machines.

Today Lyon has the eyes of H + Z

When we were leaving Lyon in the morning, I tried to look around like the eyes of those seven and twenty-eight-year-old boys, Jurka and Mirek. What would they say about how Lyon and his people look today? They are far from driving in cars, because it is not the fastest option due to congestion. But they do not even walk much on foot.

You will see ladies in costumes and boots on their feet, like footballers, officers in suits with a helmet on their heads, leaning their segway, or an old man who walks on a small scooter with a smooth asphalt on the streets. And he is not alone. Walking around the sidewalks, people who have a string in their ear, speak as if they were themselves – and imagine imagining that they are just talking to someone at the other end of the city or across the globe.

The people in the cars do not look around so much, they do not follow the signs, but nervously turn their gazes out of the way to avoid someone, with the screen on the center column telling them where to go.

Jiří M. Pechan behind the wheel of his veteran.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

Almost everything they need to know can be found on small, placid devices where they nudgely tap their finger and how and where they knock, watching the latest news, yesterday’s film on television, or an encyclopedic dictionary … I do not even have to go back seventy years. It would be twenty, and most of today’s everyday will turn into science fiction.

I agree, this little existential reasoning is trivial and every one of us has heard it a hundred times. But if you take our way as a guide, you will experience the same surprise as we do. Technology is much deeper than we realize.

Even if you do not want to go on the same trip, enjoy the fun and watch people on the streets and trams see the man of the past fifty years. Believe me, it’s fun. Especially when, in the end, one tries to look at himself with the same vision of the recent past.

Straight, neither myself nor Mirka Náplav on this trip this time as an adventurer. But the stress element is present. Do you ask where? Under the hood of two gorgeous veteran cars. Whenever anything can happen and the machine stops.

These two cars represent a real bridge between the two worlds that I compared on a morning drive through Lyons streets. Neither Michal Popov nor George M. Pechan were still in the world when the cars came out of the production hall. Even Ivan Hradil, who fixes with love, can not remember their birth. But they are like real time machines.So let me finally introduce you to the story of both cars.

Two tatras, two fates

The Tatra 87 of George M. Pechana was purchased in March 1946 by the Romanian State for their Embassy in Dublin. In 1965, however, the Irish closed all the Eastern embassies, and so the diplomatic bouquet traveled to Hertford, where it was purchased by the private owner and secured his registration marks.

Then the car changed the owners several times, but let’s take a look at the fact that the Bentley chief engineer was also involved in the family tree and apparently liked his father.

“The car had a lot of improvements, a special damping to keep the engine running, to balance the pressure in the cams and please let the owner write four times to Koprivnice asking for help in finding spare parts. When, for the fourth time, a letter arrived in capitalist replies that they were lying, but not helping, “says the current owner and driver.

Both Tatrovsky are slowly approaching the target.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

George M. Pechan bought a car from a famous racer to the top, Thomas Commander, and owed it was not in the best condition. In addition, in Warwick, where the purchase was taking place, the vendor tried to get out of the garage and forgot that he had a right-door front door that had been bent over the door frame, and the car had gone badly.

“Not only did the B-pillar move, but also the whole gearbox,” sadly recalls Jiří M. Pechan. “In the end, the car had to be completely renovated and in the autumn of 2002 I took it to Kopřivnice, where it was a miracle in 18 months.”

Since then, T87 has driven 32,000 kilometers! “With the support and cooperation of Ivan Hradila – sometimes even by phone – the car still keeps on the road and on the road,” explains the cooperation with the Ostrava mechanic and proudly continues.

“Under my leadership, this car has never been in the curtain behind someone who would have to pull it off!” It remains to be said that according to the number of cylinders, the car is called the Owl “… and the rule is that I will never bring my best friends to the wedding, Because then all the boys do the car and the bride is lonely, “he adds, laughing.

Tatrovky rest on the way to Orange.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

Tatra 87 Michala Popova, is two years younger, comes from 1948. However, its front mask already has another characteristic three main headlamps. “She went to the Soviet Union because the first owner was the Soviet” ministers “. Then she was in the government sanatorium in Crimea and then went to Moscow again, where she belonged to the orchestra. Under unclear circumstances, the conductor of this musical body was subsequently taken to private possession, “Michal tells me at dinner.

“In the course of a year, the car changed the owner when he was in Lithuania, which was a fortune, because thanks to this, after the Lithuania’s entry into the EU, the car got a European registration – and I could register my newly purchased veteran in 2008.” Pechan is not afraid and he likes Tatra and goes a lot, then Michal Popov bought the car with the idea of the famous Paris Rally rally – and in 2010 (together with Vláďa Toufar) they have traveled a long way – just in this car, which is now parked in front of the hotel.

I did not ask myself not to ask the ladies that accompany our partners on our journey. What do they think about these watched cars, they do not care about them? What kind of relationship do they have? Lydia Pechan, without a wink at the eye, answers one word: “Positive.” And after a moment of my wait, he adds: “My relationship to the car is positive, there is no rivalry among us. We like the Jirka for our common trips. “

“There is no rival anymore,” says the laughing husband.

The owner of the restaurant in Tournoun, France, was allowed to immortalize with her four-legged pets.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

“But I have to fairly add that Owl has more cosmetics in the garage than my Lydia in the bathroom!” And Eva, a partner of Michael Popov? “Tatra is already part of our world, my favorite story. Whenever we go with her on a ride across Central Bohemia, people are laughing at us merrily, blowing us, taking pictures of us. It’s a car that gives joy. Jet with him, it’s a holiday for us and passers-by. “

It remains to introduce Cameraman Pavel Oprel, who shoots both a camera and a digital camera (with original lenses from a hexadecimal camera mounted through a special reduction.) Mirka Náplava, editor of the book committee from Hanzelka and Zikmund, I do not even have the permission to give the last word to the lady The eighth member of our crew, indispensable mechanic Ivan Hradil.

“When I knew about the planned trip, I knocked on my forehead – what the hell of it you invented! But then I thought the two perfectly maintained cars and these two experienced drivers should handle it. You know, whenever the car gives off any sound, whenever we go over any inequality, I can see with my x-ray eyes every one of the stressed places and I know very well what could happen! “

Tatrovky had to cross over the Alps.

PHOTO: Pavel opened

All we have to do is believe that in peace and security we will reach the final stage in the port of Marseille and then we will return safely home.

By reaching the destination Marseille, where the two travelers traveled symbolically to the African continent, the trips of both Tater 87 do not end. “Following the destination of our journey, both car crews split and drive their way home. With one Tatra, her owners will go back to Great Britain, others will head over the Alps and Monaco back to Bohemia. I expect their tattoos to travel about 5,000 miles in total, “said Peter Horký.

The legendary Kopřivnice Tatra 87, which was produced between 1937 and 1950, was already a luxury car in its time.Its unique and lightweight body was designed by Tatra Hans Ledwinka.

Not only did it become the number one collector in the US in 2010, but a few years later, at the headquarters of Europe’s largest Volkswagen car maker in Wolfsburg, ZeitHaus included Autostadt among the milestones of the automotive world.

The Koprivnice Tatra has come to the company of other unique models such as the Ford Model T, the Citroën DS, the Lamborghini Diablo GT, the Lotus Elite Series II, the first limousine with the WUK RO 80 or the Jaguar E-Type.In designing this highly desirable car, the windmill tunnel was also used by the Koprivni producers to test aerodynamics.

Petr Horký ( webcestovatelu.cz ), Aleš Fuksa (Law)

Original Czech text:

https://www.novinky.cz/cestovani/436874-po-stope-legend-h-z-neni-jednoduche-vzdat-se-vymozenosti-moderni-doby.html