PHOTO: The Praga Auto Museum is threatened with extinction. The owner offered a collection in Prague
Emil Příhoda started building the collection in 1957. He wrote to the national committee then, but did not receive an answer, so he began to consider it established. And he had letterheads printed.
He didn’t just collect cars
The event was about an overall view of the development of Praga car production. He didn’t just collect cars. It owns a company archive that is historically about as valuable as more than a hundred cars. Personal and purposeful. Presidential cars of TG Masaryk, E. Beneš, A. Zápotocký. Pre-war car of the Havel family. The bus from the movie Powder and Gasoline. The fireman’s ladder called Máňa from the film Grandfather’s Car. Sweeper, funeral, ambulance car. Motor plow in several designs, and also a small tank. A car that drove in the first war, made in 1908.
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“On March 27, 1957, I announced the founding of the Praga Auto Museum. I was also led to this by the intention to map and concentrate the documentation that was the basis for production and documented the development of the car company. The collection grew over time. It fulfilled not only a social and cultural function, but also provided additional technical and press information. I loaned exhibits from my collection to exhibitions throughout Czechoslovakia, as well as abroad. Historic vehicles from the collection have starred in a number of films. Cooperation with other museums in the Czech Republic was also successful. Technical trainings related to Praga products were held in the building of my car museum. I was invited to give lectures on the radio and participated in a number of sports competitions of automotive veterans. The collection contains 409,000 museum items,” recalls Příhoda.
The purchase of the collection has already been discussed and is being discussed again by the city of Prague. It is one of the last hopes. Private individuals were also interested. But it will be clearer with the new municipality after the municipal composition.
The Praga Auto Museum is unique in the world thanks to its collection of documents, repair manuals and company archives. The collection is unique, as is the number of purpose-built cars that were used for tearing up, and then ended up in collection. Leading among them is the Praga NDO bus for 50 passengers, which provided the transportation of falcons during the 1st All-Falcon Gathering in 1938 in Prague, when the steep climb from the center was driven along Nerudová Street.
From tanks to designer cars
Emil Příhoda built his museum as a labor museum. It progresses from a fully equipped workshop to a finished product. The cars are individual development series in such a way as to represent the development series of the Prague car manufacturer. And the product range has also expanded. From a tank to cars dressed up by famous coachbuilders, such as Mr. Uhlík or Mr. Sodomka.
Emil Příhoda also noticed the car company’s crisis program. In the 1930s, it also produced vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and kitchen utensils. The engineering company wanted to keep and feed its workers in hard times.
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Emil Příhoda had a written agreement with his wife that he could spend a thousand crowns a month on “old shops” from the family budget. The rest was up to him. His second job was teaching at a driving school. And in it he came to his most famous car.
This is Masaryk’s car, witnesses said
“I gave a so-called technical training lecture at the driving school. I was prescribed in the scripts to tell them how the ignition magneto works. There was a person there who said he knew a large passenger car that started like that. I thought it out of the question, we bet a meter of beers. We went to see the car. We came to a big black car. It was a magnet four-cylinder. I lost the bet. It was shown to us by a lady who claimed that the Praga factory would buy the car for a lot of money. I went to the factory, to the economic deputy, who laughed that he should buy an old car, the conversation ended with the usual phrase ‘I don’t even have the paychecks’. The factory has definitively stated that they will not buy the car. I showed interest. I wanted all the papers for the car. in total, it belonged to the president’s office. “That’s Masaryk’s car, witnesses told me,” the incident narrates.
Jan Šícha