Tatra T47

This blog post contains everything (publishable) about the concept design Tatra T47. The design represents an attempt to create a beautiful car body design for a limousine based on non-standard vehicle layout while maintaining references to Tatra limousines and preserving the unique identity of Tatra vehicles.

Motivation

It was the beginning of the year 2008, I was studying gymnázium (a general secondary school), all crazy about physics, but yet very interested in cars. I was never good at driving, and I was not actually interested in technical aspects of vehicles so much back then. So, the main consideration about almost every vehicle I encountered, was its design. I always liked to draw and my mind was full of weird ideas. Unfortunately, I was never good at drawing so I never considered to go to an art school or something.

But I was still interested in automotive design, and at that time, during 2008, I was pretty angry about what was happening back then. I was disappointed by an uniformity of automotive design. Introduction of front-engined Porsche Panamera and Tatra's new plan to build a limited edition of limousine (which was later canceled due to the global economic depression) sparked a few ideas in my head. So I started drawing them... I wanted the first actual design that I would ever make to conform to the following requirements:

• executive vehicle/limousine = can accommodate at least 4 passengers and offer all of them as much luxury as possible (easy entrance, nice view outside of the car, some storage room easily accessible from inside of the car).
• unconventional engine placement = all modern executive class vehicles are front engined, which is BORING!!! :D
• it must be Tatra = outstanding design which contains references to the old Tatra limousines.
• timeless design = try not to use clues that are just "in", but instead use elements, that stay beautiful even after a long time.
• simplicity of design - I put lot of stress into this requirement. I like simple, functional designs. In my opinion, using just too many "features" can actually make vehicles look ugly and "hard to look at".
• design that is not a demonstration of power, but still looks solid and robust.

You see, for a guy who could not draw, my requirements were pretty strict. Actually I was stupid and crazy. But all of that mixed together, it gave me opportunity to create something that was not here before... at least in the shape that I put it together.

Ideas

The first ideas I had were based upon the rear-engine vehicle layout, similar to Porsches and old Tatras. I originally wanted to accommodate huge V8 engine resulting in extremely powerful limousine, which would in turn require optimalisation of weight distribution (everything except of the engine should be above front wheels) and improved downforce at front of the vehicle. I investigated few body design ideas and I also introduced the idea of "blanket", which should evoke the feeling of body panels shaped by blanket covering up the body of the vehicle. However I could not make anything reasonably looking from this layout.

Another idea was to introduce bi-moto layout. It lead me to some more considerations. As bi-moto, I considered transversally mounted rear engine behind the rear axle and the same approach for front engine. At this point I also decided to drop modern-look and aim for retro-look of the vehicle with more references to old Tatras, and to differentiate from the design concept Tatra 903 by Michal Jelínek which was released at that time  (and is gorgeous!). However, I turned the idea of bimoto down due to a huge engineering complexity, and meaninglessness as it adds too much weight.

This lead me to almost the final idea - to use transversally mounted I6 or I4 engine in front of the rear axle and electric engine in front. That sounded totally crazy, but that was exactly what I wanted - some very unconventional design. Small engine for a limousine may sound also terribly, but: Current small engines are powerful, and also, my intention was to build car that would be silent on the inside. It should not be a demonstration of power. Instead, the vehicle should be a beautiful companion with feminine character.

Few of the sketches... Most of them were actually drawn in 2015, because I could not find my old sketches.

Final Design

Fast-forward 2 years, it was March-April of 2010, I was studying Computer Science at Brno University of Technology, struggling to keep up with an enormous amount of projects and stuff to learn, and to ventilate my creativity, I started to draw once again. At that time I was also considering dropping from school, having a year off to work and improve my drawing skills and maybe eventually start studying industrial design. So, I restarted the idea of T-1 and developed the final design.

For the final design I kept the mid-rear engine layout, dropped any electric engine at front of the vehicle and instead, I decided to use V6 transversally mounted, behind rear seats and in front of the rear axle (as in Lotus Evora which was unveiled at 2008). This would result in baggage area behind the powertrain as well, as in the front end of the vehicle. To preserve fully comfortable rear seats with maximum interior space, the wheelbase is kept long. To compensate for the position of the engine, the front wheels are, however, pushed backwards as much as possible without impacting the visual of the vehicle. The "secret" interior luggage space is in size of the safety briefcase, behind rear seats, above the engine compartment.

Execution

I started shaping up the car in 3ds Max at the beginning of summer break (May 2010) and it was actually the very first thing I have ever made in 3ds Max. The design was shelved at the end of the summer break (September 2010). However, I did a very minor tweaks to it in 2012 and 2015 (better topology for smoothing).

So here it is. Unfinished. I still feel like it is not perfect and there are millions of things that I would do differently now, almost 5 years after. But I still like it. Actually, it is the only thing that I have ever done and I still like it after such long time. And I think it have not aged a bit since I finished it. And I hope it will age more slowly than I do...

(Click the image for better resolution. Scroll down for video.)

...and there are more dreams to come...

PS: Why it is called T47? Well, when I begun to "sketch" the model up, it was in Google SketchUp, just to have an idea of the volume. And I called it T1. Then I started to shape it in 3ds Max, so I called it as T2, referring to it as the second iteration. Eventually, I was saving the progress of the work to files named t2, t3, t4... and so on. I finished my design at t47. And that is where the name came from.

Disclaimer: "Tatra" name and TATRA logo are registered trademarks of their respective holders and are used in this work solely for illustration.

You are free to use any part of this work, with exception of the TATRA logo and "Tatra" name for any purposes - both commercial and personal.