Tatra does not build many cars like the Tatra 77 with 3.0L Tatra 77 V8, built from 1934 to 1933 when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. Its designer of record is Hans Ledwinka / Erich Übelacker.
How it came about
The Tatra 77 (T77) is one of the first serial-produced, truly aerodynamically-designed automobiles, produced by Czechoslovak company Tatra from 1934 to 1938. It was developed by Hans Ledwinka and Paul Jaray, the Zeppelin aerodynamic engineer. Launched in 1934, the Tatra 77 is a coach-built automobile, constructed on a platform chassis with a pressed box-section steel backbone rather than Tatra's trademark tubular chassis, and is powered by a 60 horsepower (45 kW) rear-mounted 2.97-litre air-cooled V8 engine, in later series increased to a 75 horsepower (56 kW) 3.4-litre engine.
It possessed advanced engineering features, such as overhead valves, hemispherical combustion chambers, a dry sump, fully independent suspension, rear swing axles and extensive use of lightweight magnesium alloy for the engine, transmission, suspension and body. The average drag coefficient of a 1:5 model of a Tatra 77 was recorded as 0.2455. The later model T77a, introduced in 1935, has a top speed of over 150 km/h (93 mph) due to its advanced aerodynamic design which delivers an exceptionally low drag coefficient of 0.212. Sources claim that this is the coefficient of a 1:5 scale model, not of the car itself, so the actual drag coefficient may have been slightly higher.
The hardware
Under the skin sits 3.0L Tatra 77 V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Kerb weight is 1700 kg. The gearbox is a 4-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine hangs behind the rear axle, a layout that gives ferocious traction out of a corner and a reputation to match on the way in. The wheelbase is 3150 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Tatra's history is not in doubt: the Tatra V570 came before it; the Tatra 87 followed it; it was built at Kopřivnice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Bugatti Type 57, the Chevrolet Suburban, the Mercedes-Benz W29. Its Tatra stablemates include the Tatra 10 and the Tatra 600 kabriolet.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Tatra 77 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.