Here’s a strange one - the Tatra 603. Made in Czechoslovakia, the 603 was actually well before its time when first designed in the fifties. The company has been going strong for almost as long as Benz, although they gave up making cars in the nineties, preferring to concentrate on their successful truck range.

But Tatra began its tradition of rear-engined vehicles in the thirties, even Dr Ferdinand Porsche “borrowing” heavily from Tatra designs in the design of his Volkswagen. The 603 was one of these rear-engined curiosities.

But the uniqueness of the 603 does not end with its unusual positioning of the power plant. The engine was an air-cooled 2.5 liter V8! Okay, it only produced 95 bhp but imagine all that weight swinging around behind the back axle. The handling was spectacular at speed as a result - but it did not matter too much since only the top party officials and factory managers could afford to have one. They were interested in luxury rather than performance and the 603 delivered in that area.

Those Czechs know how to put together a good car, in spite of the undeserved reputation of the old Skodas, and Tatra was no exception. The company holds a number of impressive records, as well as Dr Porsche’s respect - it is the third oldest car manufacturer in the world and was the first to introduce a body influenced by aerodynamics.

Further to my previous post on the Auto Union D-Type, I see that Christie’s are now saying that they expect the D-Type to fetch in the region of $12,000,000. There is an inaccuracy in CNNMoney’s article on the car that I ought to correct, however.

It is not quite true to say that Auto Union are now known as Audi. Auto Union were exactly what their name states, an amalgamation of several German manufacturers, one of which was known as Audi. In the sixties, Auto Union was absorbed into Volkswagen but was allowed to disappear, apparently forever.

In the seventies, when VW decided that they needed a new marque to make luxury cars and to dissociate it from the company’s “beetle” image, someone obviously remembered that they held the rights to the Audi name and it was duly resurrected. It can hardly be said that Audis are the descendant of the D-Type, therefore - only the Audi name survived.

But I don’t suppose VAG will mind at all if their cars are associated in some way with the D-Type - it was a glorious beast, after all. Just take a look at this…

Fox News has a story about a Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake being sold at auction for $5.5 million. Although not a world record, this is the highest ever paid for an American car.

And when you see the spec for this car, it becomes clear why it sold for so much. Made in 1966, the Super Snake added twin superchargers to the 427 Ford V8 - that gave it a 0-60mph time of around 3 seconds, unimagineable acceleration at the time.

Now that’s what I call hairy…

Porsche introduced the 904 in 1964 with the sole purpose of racing. To meet the terms of the homologation rules, they had to build a hundred road-going examples. Such was the demand for the car that they produced twenty more in 1965.

The engine was the inevitable Porsche flat-4, although some of the later cars had the flat-6 and just a few, for racing by the factory team, the flat-8. The car had a fiberglass body and was very light as a result - it won the Targa Florio in 1964 as well as many other races. But the reason I write about it here is that it looked so good; to my eye, it is by far the best-looking Porsche ever built.

Who cares that it is way beyond our reach and probably impractical as a road car? It’s as pretty as a picture and deserves to be remembered. And it was the first step in an evolution that led ultimately to the all-conquering Porsche 917. Now that is progeny to be proud of!