Nice to see a T 77 at the Concours d’Elegnce at Villa d’Este at Lake Como this year. It is one of the cars of Tomas Hoferek, whose T 77’s body was built at the Florian Brothers workshop in Koprivnice.
http://cohttp://concorsodeleganzavilladeste.com/ncorsodeleganzavilladeste.com/
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/dealer/hodlmayr-classic-car-center?id=98566&type=car&model=
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/tatra/t54/1934/427983
https://truckstar.nl/truckland-voortaan-ook-officieel-dealer-tatra/
Original Dutch text and photos:
Background May 10, 2017
It is pleasant tours with the Tatra. The fat 8 × 8 is limited to 65 kilometers per hour. And with 460 hp and 16 auto-shifting gears, the car is in no-time at that speed. When pulling up, you’ll enjoy a deep-eyed engine noise coming out of the cabin. The automatic switching of the ZF AS-tronic tank is only visible through the varying engine sprocket, as this is hardly felt. At speed, you can hear the Paccar engine at 1,250 engine rungs, only a relaxing roast of eight Michelin XS tires sounds.
High and comfortable: on bumpy Twentse and German outer roads lies the air-ragged Tatra without jumps or deins on the road. With a semi-finished silage box on speed, regular driver Nick Oude Vrielink dares to release the steering wheel, as the truck is steady straight ahead. In the corners, the Tatra with a high and heavy load overlaps slightly; “Just get used to it,” says the driver. With a modification to the air springs, this is improved by Berkers.
The Tatra brand makes many people alike think of a spartan army vehicle. Heavily run, all wheels driven, a tiny cab and wheels that stand like a ‘V’. The Czech brand is still active in that world, with heavy army and forestry trucks. But Tatra has been building modern trucks for many years, also for agriculture. Tatra has been purchasing from DAF since 2011. The 12.9 liter six-cylinder Paccar engine, day cab and transmission come from DAF (Paccar). The patented bucket chassis with independent axle suspension is Tatra-own. The result is a very comfortable, self-propelled 8 × 8 ‘carrier’.
That buzz chassis with independent axle suspension is really a Tatra thing. The truck has one tube as a chassis, and through it runs a central drive shaft. Through this narrow chassis, large tires easily fit under the Tatra while maintaining the steering rack. Each wheel has its own branch from the drive shaft. Pignon wheels float the crown wheels with a diameter of 35 centimeters. Due to this gear transmission and independent suspension, the axles have great freedom of shuttle. They are shielded with a kind of pleated rubber.
Because of the pulley wheels on both sides, the axes jump each other 5 centimeters. The planetary differential is also on the central drive shaft. With a pneumatic cylinder you can lock it 100%. Turn the central drive shaft, gearshifts and differential in an oil bath. The crown wheels also spatter oil against the scales of the shuttle. The chassis has no rotating drive shaft on the outside where grass can go winding.
Tatra builds a lot for the army. For example, all vent pipes have been worked upwards, so that the Tatra can drive up to 1 meter deep into the water. Also air pressure switching systems are cuttings for the army. Tatra is building the pipelines for years. The air pipes run through the oil bath and through the crown wheel. A flexible piece of pipe bridges the fusee.
Berkers builds a self-imported compressor. That’s a one-stroke three-cylinder piston compressor that supplies 1,350 liters per minute. In order to get the eight XS tires from 1 bar to 5 bar, this according to Berkers requires about 6 minutes. Berkers built their own drive in the cabin with a 3-position switch (1, 3 or 5 bar).
Read how Nick Old Vrielink, the wage earner, wins the Tatra by moving the mouse over the numbers:
Berkers adjust the Tatra even more before it comes to the market under the name of Agritruck. By default, the 8 × 8 version has two straight axes. But at the request of Berkers, Tatra builds a steering wheel in front of them. As a result, the standard leaf suspension (additional to the air suspension) has disappeared and Berkers builds a hydraulic spring cylinder.
This spring cylinder builds Berkers only at the rear and helps with heavy loads. Also, larger tires are now used in the front, which makes use of the same rims and hub reductions. For this, Berkers had to see a piece from the cabin. There was also a wooden cart attached to the chassis. And the anti-backbone is given an ‘S’ shape, to accommodate any displacement pump.
Who chooses for a hook arm makes it harder. For this reason, Berkers must reduce transmission and engine. Because, with 1.37 meter high tires, the total height is a limitation. On the Tatras of Wassink, a Schuitemaker Siwa 720 fits on the hook arm and stays (without the yellow rim) below 4 meters.
The angle of the hook arm then reaches 1.5 meters. Berkers Techniek then builds a 6.9 meter long VDL hook arm of 30 tons. One with a nod, making it short on the truck. By the way: From the driver’s seat you look at the hook, which facilitates picking up a container.
Berkers builds an oil pump himself. Just behind the cabin comes a 250 liter oil reservoir with oil coolers on top of it. Berkers take the drive directly from the engine, and so it runs independently of the transmission (coupling). Useful when unloading on the pit. A load sensing controlled plunger pump delivers 225 liters per minute at 350 bar for the hook arm and structure (for example, dosing rollers, bottom chain, and the like). At 1,700 engine speed, the pump gives 225 l / m with 350 bar and thus 145 kW. All in all, Berkers Technique has been keying 3 months to build the Tatra to Agritruck.
Tatra delivers three different transmissions. A ZF manual transmission, ZF automatic gearbox and an Allison power hitch with torque converter. Berkers has so far provided the self-switching ZF AS-tronic. This has 16 gears. Limited at 65km / h, it drives exactly in the highest gear (about 1,250 rpm at 65 km / h).
In wet conditions the manual setting is better, otherwise the Tatra will switch back and forth. The Allison box has only six gears and has a fluid coupling. Probably better in the heavy drag, but expected to increase slightly more in road transport.
Berkers Techniek has been an importer of Tatra trucks for two years. The company already built used trucks for agricultural trucks, but this usually appears to be expensive to handle. Terberg has stopped in this segment. According to Frank Berkers, space is in this niche market for the Tatra. Berkers also sees a market in earth-moving. There the Tatra Phoenix would compete with a self-propelled knee dumper. Berkers wants to operate this market itself.
Read how the Wage Company of Eijck in Alps (Brabant) experiences the Tatra by moving the mouse over the numbers:
In addition to the 8 × 8, of which four now work in the Netherlands, Berkers also sees opportunities for the 10 × 10 trucks or 6 × 6 models with semi-trailers. “A baking structure should not be broader than 2.55 meters. Whoever wants to have a lot of loading volume must look for it in length. “The 10 × 10 chassis is 80 centimeters longer, for example, a Kaweco Radium 60 (over 55 kuub) or 36 kuubs manure tank could fit. Frank Berkers also has schematic drawings of a high resolution 10 x 10. If the maximum speed of 65 km / h is another drawback for you, the Tatra has been selected to allow for faster tires and cabin construction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyEVup_1Jn4
(T 57K appears at 9.50, 10.35, 12.10, 15.10)
Prague, April 20 (CTK) – The National Technical Museum (NTM) in Prague will mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the first journey of the famous Czech globetrotter tandem Jiri Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund at a commemorative event on Saturday, NTM director Karel Ksandr told reporters on Thursday.
A documentary film screening will show the historic moment when the two young travellers, both economists by training, embarked on their Tatra 87 car and set out for Africa in 1947.
The visitors will be acquainted with Hanzelka and Zikmud’s story. Veteran cars from before 1970 and all types of Tatra cars will be displayed by the museum as well as private owners during the event.
The exhibition will also present authentic items from the tandem’s first journey, such as a gun, a map, some coins, souvenirs and shoes.
A Tatra car’s commemorative ride in the footsteps of Hanzelka and Zikmund, with a three-member crew aboard, will start outside the NTM on Saturday, April 22. At noon, they will depart for a travellers’ festival in Zlin, south Moravia, and then continue to Marseille, France, according to the route the two globetrotters described in their diary 70 years ago, Ksandr said.
When Hanzelka (1920-2003) and Zikmund (born 1919) departed for Africa in 1947 with the aim to go around the world, only a handful of friends parted with them outside the Autoclub seat in Prague. On return 3.5 years later, they were greeted by fans in the streets as popular travellers.
On their first journey, they toured Africa and South and Central America. They crossed 44 countries and covered 111,000 kilometres, including 61,700 in their Tatra car.
They made 10,000 photos and shot 11 kilometres of film on their tour, during which they shared their experiences with the public through immediate radio reportages and later through several books.
NTM expert Petr Kozisek told journalists that Hanzelka and Zikmund’s Tatra 87, on display in the museum, is not the car with which they set out for their first journey.
“The original car ended up in Libya after an accident. They chose another one, also silver painted, in Alexandria, with which they completed most of their trip,” Kozisek said.
The commemorative ride starting on Saturday will use another Tatra that belongs to a private owner.
A team of the Tatra Register Deutschland showed a Wehrmacht T 57K along with a KdF Kubelwagen to show similarities and differences of the air-cooled flat four light vehicles. To make the stand attractive, the landings of the Allies in Normandy 1944 were imitated on a large background wallpaper while the sandy coast replaced the stone floor of the exhibition hall. To inform the public leaflets on the T 57K and the TRD were available. Further, a large number of WW2 photo’s where the T 57K was used by the German Ordnungspolizei, the SS, Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht were shown. Last but not least, the crew consisting of Stefan Ebert, Hedwig Teriertte-Hübner, Roland Henkel, Jürg Malinovsky, Antonin Zavada and Kees Smit answered the questions of the stand. Tatra fans of several clubs and from several European clubs attended the stand. They came from the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Eventually, the TRD stand managed 4th place in the club competition of the Techno Classica.
The last couple of years, there were several T 87s present at Essen. Not this year however witha Dutch T 80 offered a a large sum.
