The cycle of silver coins of the Czech National Bank with a nominal value of 500 CZK, which will commemorate famous means of transport over the course of five years, presents its third issue. The coin with the year 2023, which was minted in the standard version, is dedicated to the Tatra 603 passenger car.

In the 1950s, the Czechoslovak economy was heavily marked by central planning, and the automotive industry was no exception. Tatra, for example, was no longer allowed to produce passenger cars, even though they were beautiful, powerful and popular. However, the Kopřivnice automobile factory did not accept the imposed fate of heavy truck manufacturers and secretly started to develop a new limousine. When the communist regime discovered that they had no representative official car available due to the interference in production, they were happy to approve the production of the secret model, which was named Tatra 603. The air-cooled eight-cylinder engine featured a streamlined body with graceful and balanced shapes that made it distinctly different from all other contemporary machines. When the Czechoslovaks arrived in it at the Winter Olympics in Italy in 1956 and the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958, Western journalists were speechless. They could not believe that a means of transport produced in a small socialist country would surpass even the cars of Western capitalist production. Domestic and foreign demand for the “sixty-three“ was enormous, but only the chosen party officials could drive it…

The author of the commemorative coin is the medal maker Petra Brodská, DiS. The expert committee of the Czech National Bank was particularly impressed by “the excellent rendering of the Tatra 603 car and all its detailed elements, including technical drawings“. The car is depicted in the first series with three headlights. The reverse side of the coin features an inlay in the shape of a car, which is made of pure silver and has a special surface finish of anthracite colour. The so-called PVD technology involves applying metal layers by steaming or sputtering. It can be used to create very thin structures with excellent physical and chemical properties. Their thickness is in the order of mere thousandths of a millimetre. The noble coating based on amorphous carbon simulates the iconic black paint of the Tatra 603, while providing the coin with additional protection against wear and corrosion.

All Czech coins - both circulation and commemorative - are minted by the Czech Mint in Jablonec nad Nisou.