Chances are that if a designer had submitted the design of this car to an American manufacturer in the mid-1930s, he would have been promptly sent home and asked to rest.

Fortunately for Hans Ledwinka, he was employed by Tatra, Czechoslovakia’s most prominent car manufacturer, which let the genius make his own path and break the mold in the process.

Introduced in 1936, the T87 was the end result of a design that Ledwinka had begun developing in the early 1920s.

It featured an incredibly streamlined body built using full monocoque construction on a relatively short chassis with swing-axle suspension, carrying a rear-mounted, air-cooled, magnesium alloy V-8 with hemispherical combustion chambers and a single overhead camshaft per cylinder bank.

The result was sturdy, quiet, spacious, and comfortable, and a fine high-speed cruiser that could run up to 100 mph.

There was nothing else like it being built anywhere else in the world in the late 1930s.

With brief suspension for World War...