Magazine
Not many people are prepared to travel in it, but the Czech made Velorex car has just proved its worth in an expedition across the legendary Route 66. A two- year-old takes an early morning joyride across town on his tricycle, and the town of Pelhrimov wants to build a unique monument. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.
Forty-four year old Jiří Vystrčil from Brno has worked at Czech Railways all his life and he’s an employee the company can rightly be proud off. He knows all the rail routes running through the Czech Republic by heart and can reel off the stations along any given track off the top of his head without giving it a moment’s thought. And there are 2,762 of them in all – so it’s no mean feat. He moreover knows all the route numbers by heart so in the event of computer failure, Mr. Vystrčil could single-handedly take over. He says it all started as a game when he worked as a conductor and ticket inspector and people would ask him about the best train connection from one place to another. First he’d have to do a lengthy check in his train manual but gradually he realized he knew the answers and started memorizing out-of-the way stations in order to broaden his repertoire. Soon he was wowing people with his spectacular memory and it became a challenge to be able to answer any question put to him. Twenty years later – he’s made the Czech book of Records, the prime time news and is a well-known figure in his home town. As far as promotion goes - he’s only made it to chief-conductor, but he is undisputedly the best chief-conductor Czech Railways ever had.
It is not often you get to see a pelican flying overhead in Prague –but it happens occasionally when the zoo fails to clip a pelican’s wings in time to prevent their escape. Most of them circle over the Vltava and end up on one of the nearby islands but the one who escaped last week was more adventurous. He flew along the river upstream going as far as Thomayerova Hospital which is 17 kilometers away. There he took up residence until he was caught and brought back by two slightly disheveled looking police officers.
It may not look it, but the Velorex four wheeler (a frog-shaped vehicle developed in this country in 1936 as a cheap substitute for cars which were in short supply after the war) is an incredibly sturdy and reliable vehicle. Four Czech-owned Velorex cars just proved their worth in an expedition across the legendary Route 66, kicking off from Chicago in early September and reaching their destination – Los Angeles – last weekend. The tiny three-wheelers – a cross between a motorbike and a car – held their own over the 5,254 kilometer expedition and according to Tomáš Jaroň ( one of the Czech Velorex crew of four ) there was not even a hiccup –the spare parts they carried for emergencies were left unused. They covered on average 250 kilometers a day, though at one stage it was a record 400, and all along the route they sparked enormous interest. “People would flock around us wherever we stopped and ask us about it,” Jaroň told the internet daily IDNES. What is said to have impressed people most is the car’s low fuel consumption – a mere 6 liters per 100 kilometers. For Tomáš Jaroň and his pals, who each have several Velorex cars in their garage, the Velorex, dubbed Hadrák or rag car – is “an affair of the heart” as they say. Tomáš Jaroň has seventeen of them and today they are all prized vintage cars. Altogether 15,300 of them were made in the post-war years and some of them were exported to countries of the former communist block, where demand for them was also great. Today there are only about 400 of them left in the Czech Republic. It is not clear how many more are scattered around the world, Tomáš Jaroň says he saw four on the road in Chicago and two more in Loss Angeles. And, they have also been sighted as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Chances are you can come across one practically anywhere.
