Editing Tatra (company) (section)

==Tatra and the conception of the Volkswagen Beetle==
Both [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Ferdinand Porsche]] were influenced by the Tatras.<ref name="willson">Willson, Quentin ''The Ultimate Classic Car Book''. New Your, New York: DK Publishing Inc., 1995. {{ISBN|0-7894-0159-2}}. Pages 214-215</ref> Hitler was a keen automotive enthusiast, and had ridden in Tatras during political tours of Czechoslovakia.<ref name="Margolius, Ivan and Henry, John G. 1990"/><ref name="willson"/> He had also dined numerous times with Ledwinka.<ref name="willson"/> After one of these dinners Hitler remarked to Porsche, "This is the car for my roads".<ref name="Margolius, Ivan and Henry, John G. 1990"/><ref name="willson"/><ref name="mantle">Car Wars, Jonathan Mantle, Arcade Publishing, 1997</ref> From 1933 onwards, Ledwinka and Porsche met regularly to discuss their designs,<ref name="ukcar">{{cite web|title=Brief History of Tatra|url=http://www.ukcar.com/history/Tatra/index.html|work=UKCAR|access-date=27 January 2011}}</ref> and Porsche admitted "Well, sometimes I looked over his shoulder and sometimes he looked over mine" while designing the [[Volkswagen]].<ref name="willson"/><ref name="mantle" /> There is no doubt that the Beetle bore a striking resemblance to the Tatras, particularly the [[Tatra V570]].<ref name="willson"/> The [[Tatra 97]] of 1936 had a rear-located, rear-wheel drive, air-cooled four-cylinder [[boxer engine]] accommodating four passengers and providing luggage storage under the front bonnet and behind the rear seat. Another similarity between this Tatra and the Beetle is the central structural tunnel. Tatra launched a lawsuit against Volkswagen for patent infringement, but this was stopped when [[Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia|Germany invaded Czechoslovakia]]. At the same time, Tatra was forced to stop producing the T97. The matter was re-opened after World War II and in 1965 Volkswagen paid the Ringhoffer family {{currency|1,000,000|DM}} in an out of court settlement.<ref name=schmarbeck>{{cite book|last=Schmarbeck|first=Wolfgang|title=Hans Ledwinka: Seine Autos - Sein Leben|year=1997|publisher=H. Weishaupt Verlag|location=Graz|language=de|page=174|isbn=3-900310-56-4}}</ref>

Tatra and Volkswagen's body design were preceded by similar designs of Hungarian automotive engineer [[Béla Barényi|Bela Barenyi]], whose sketches resembling the Volkswagen Beetle date back to 1925.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://apnews.com/53243665f30f4d97a2a292e3c7e76a41|title=From Nazis to hippies: End of the road for Volkswagen Beetle|last=McHUGH|first=DAVID|date=2019-07-09|website=AP NEWS|access-date=2019-07-09}}</ref>