Z-14

1931

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The Zbrojovka Brno factory entered the history of motorsport especially with their racing cars from late 1920s and early 1930s, which had design-wise unusual supercharged two-stroke engines with opposed pistons or with twin-piston design in transverse or longitudinal arrangement. The most successful car of this construction was the Z-14 with a supercharged 1,5-litre eight-piston four-cylinder engine and under-carriage partly inspired by the construction of Bugatti cars.

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Two Z-14 cars entered the Brno Grand Prix on 27 September 1931, but they did not succeed, and the factory later sold them to private drivers. The most successful of those was František Hoštálek, who raced with this car on Masaryk circuit in 1933, 1934, 1935 a 1937, with the best result in 1934 when he ended sixth in the 1.5-litre category.

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Of the three or four Z-14 cars there survived only one chassis, nowadays in collections of the NTM. Racing car with a water-cooled supercharged two-stroke transverse-twin-piston four-cylinder engine located be- hind the front axle and with a rear-wheel drive. Engine displacement 1444 cc, output 36,8 kW (50 hp), maximum speed 150 km/h. Producer: Československá zbrojovka a. s., Brno.

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Automobile Z-14 with starting number 52, which Arnošt Procházka and Josef Mamula drove in 1931 on the Masaryk circuit. They did not finish the race due to a trivial malfunction of brake cables. The second car, driven by Otto Lukáš, was involved in an accident.
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František Hoštálek (second from the left) at his Z-14 car before the Brno Grand Prix in 1934, where he finished sixth in the category of cars up to 1.5-litre with average speed of 98.13 km/h. Of the prescribed fifteen rounds, however, he only managed fourteen by the end of the race.