Tatra 87 at Josefuv Dul Car Show, Liberecky kraj, Bohemia(CZ), 2015

The Tatra 87 (a.k.a. T87), may have been the most famous car that Tatra produced in the pre-Communist era, with production running from 1936 to 1950, with production actually continuing during World War II. The somewhat sinister reason for this was that it was a very popular car with German officials during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, until it was banned from German government use over safety fears.

Czechs sometimes joked, if privately, that the Tatra 87 was their "secret weapon" since so many Germans were killed in accidents with it (a fact that, oddly, is not an undisputed fact among historians). The reasons for this story (and the German ban, which is well-documented) were both that the Tatra 87 had its weight distribution too far to the rear, a common problem in rear-engined cars, and that it was fast for its time, being capable of over 160Km/h (99 m.p.h.), in an era when only the fastest cars were.

The Tatra 87's engine was actually an 85-horsepower V-8, but the obvious parallel to the Ford flathead end there, as this was a SOHC V-8 with 2969 cc displacement, making it considerably smaller than the Ford 221cid (3.6L) flathead. Another difference was that the Ford flathead, in line with conventional practice, was water-cooled, whereas the Tatra 2.9L SOHC was air-cooled, like other pre-war Tatra engines.

Another dissimilarity was that V-8 Fords, while fast compared to other mass-market cars, could only top out at about 75-84 m.p.h., depending on which year and variant. Hot rods don't count, of course. This difference was due largely to the lower weight, and more sophisticated aerodynamics, of the Tatra. The similarity in appearance to the Volkswagen Beetle also isn't a coincidence, actually, as Ferdinand Porsche studied the Tatra 87 as one of the models for the Beetle.

One more thing that might be worth looking at, if you're interested, is Wikipedia's list of famous (and unexpected) people who drove Tatra 87's, including people like John Steinbeck, King Farouk I of Egypt, and maybe less suprisingly, Felix Wankel, inventor of the Wankel or "rotary" engine used in Mazdas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_87