Happy days with the 'other' Alfa

• 

Here's a cornucopia of delights: not just one Friday Lady but five, and a very interesting large touring car besides. If we were presenting this as a mystery car competition, for our own part we'd say it was almost certainly something American. The large but straightforward coachwork and chunky disc wheels all point towards a six-cylinder from Uncle Sam.

In fact, we're told it's an Alfa, but not the sort you're probably thinking of. In the pre-war years, Czechoslovakia boasted quite a large number of car-makers besides Laurin & Klement, Škoda and Tatra. Praga - the Latin name for Prague - was founded in its namesake city in 1904 and would grow to become one of the most prominent car-makers in all Bohemia (Czechoslovakia not being created until 1918). It started by building two- and four-cylinder cars in the style of Charron, with dash-mounted radiators, but these were mainly experimental. Production proper did not commence until 1911, as Praga turned to more conventional four-cylinder sidevalve designs.

An expensive luxury for the privileged few

The initial range of fours consisted of the 1100cc Alfa, 2.3-litre, 28hp Mignon and 3.8-litre, 45hp Grand. The Mignon and Grand both sound like rather impressive automobiles, although we can't help thinking that the Alfa looks rather a heavy car for only 1100cc. Regardless, the Alfa seems to have been popular as it lasted into the 1930s, even as the firm's range expanded to encompass everything from an 856cc voiturette to a 3½-litre straight-eight. By this stage, Praga was also a prominent manufacturer of light aircraft, but motor-car production ended in 1947 and production turned solely to lorries and buses.

Fewer than in 1 in 200 people owned a car in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, so these ladies must have belonged to a fairly privileged family to be cavorting around with this Praga. Certainly, the fact that the younger ladies are prettily dressed in fashionable clothes confirms that they are certainly not of peasant stock. We see eight people in all, five women and three children, and we wonder if they were all travellers in the Praga. They could probably all have squeezed in at a pinch, but it wouldn't have been very comfortable.

It probably goes without saying that when Pragas were in production, most would have remained in Czechoslovakia and a few might have strayed further into central or eastern Europe. There are a number of preserved survivors, but you'll probably have to head to Bohemia if you ever hope to see one.

Words: Zack Stiling; photograph: Sludge G on Flickr
 

Kommentar abgeben...