Antique & Classic Cars Blog

We motorheads have long seen the graceful curves and striking lines designers pen into cars as art. Sometimes the lines are so alluring, the rest of the art world takes notice too.

Fans of the glorious Tatra will be pleased to know the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has included one the Czech-built, air-cooled, single-finned, suicide-doored, rear-engined eye morsels among its exhibit of exceptional modernist works.

For the motor-fluent, we drink in such details even in a roomful of exceptional automobiles. But nothing calls home beautiful form in a car like setting it on its own among other alluringly crafted artworks.

The musuem’s Tatra T87 has a sweeping aerodynamic body that calls the eye back and forth along its length. In an era when the needs inside the car–for headroom and luggage room and crush zone and visibility–often set baselines for the outside design, it’s fun to see a car that looks like it was born on an artist’s canvas and carried to three dimensions by loving sculptors.

If you’ve never seen a Tatra and enjoy modernist art, get over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and check out this spotless example. The museum is free and there is much else to delight you among the many floors and walls.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Car stories, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.