2026 will mark 40 years since Tatra made its Dakar Rally debut. While their presence is not as prominent as it was in the Paris–Dakar days, CEO Kristijan Fiket is keen on staying involved and celebrating the anniversary.

“Dakar is our calling card in the world,” said Fiket in an interview with iDNES.cz. “We have to be there, that’s our place, Dakar is our race. We need to sit down and agree on how we’re going to do it and who we’re going to work with there.”

Tatra raced the Dakar Rally for the first time in 1986, a year after LIAZ became the first Czech manufacturer to take part. Zdeněk Kahánek piloted a 6×6 Tatra 815 truck nicknamed Ostrý-II in the event but retired. The Kopřivnice-based marque would achieve great success at the turn of the decade and throughout the 1990s, winning the Truck category six times with Karel Loprais (1988, 1994–1995, 1998–1999, 2001). The rally division continued under his nephew Aleš until Tatra partnered with Buggyra Racing in 2014, who became the sole Tatra factory team.

Buggyra currently fields the Tatra Buggyra Evo3 and Tatra Phoenix at Dakar; the latter finished 11th in Truck at the latest Dakar in January while the Evo3 placed 14th. The 2025 race also saw Tomáš Vrátný and Fesh Fesh debut a prototype truck called the Tatra FF7, which scored a ninth-place finish. Fesh Fesh and Buggyra are both Czech teams.

While Loprais races for IVECO now, his team had two Tatra 815s based on his uncle’s trucks at the Dakar Classic that finished 1–2 in the H2T class. Loprais plans to bring three Tatras to the 2026 Classic.

In late May, five Tatras and four LIAZs that competed at Dakar over the years were brought to the Military Technical Museum Lešany for an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first Czech Dakar team. All of the Tatras came from the 815 line, which had been produced by the company for 42 years before the 158,065th and final unit rolled off the line in February.

When asked if Tatra has something planned for their own Dakar anniversary in 2026, Fiket simply proclaimed: “Yes, we plan to. Get ready to be surprised.”

Fiket was appointed Tatra’s CEO in September 2024, returning to the company after being its COO from 2010 to 2012. As COO, he helped developed the Tatra Phoenix series before leaving due to disagreements with foreign shareholders. In the 1990s, he served in the SJP Alfa Zagreb special police unit during the closing salvo of the Croatian War of Independence followed by the President of Croatia’s security detail, for which he received a medal of valor from Franjo Tuđman. He entered the automotive industry soon after.

While his service days are behind him, Fiket is still involved with that field since Tatra sells roughly three to five thousand military vehicles annually to clients like the Belgian and Indian armies. Fiket noted in the interview that the latter heavily relied on older Tatra 815s to transport their tanks during heightened tensions with Pakistan in May.

“I have unfinished work from my first stint at Tatra,” he said. “I would really like to see the day when we surpass the annual goal of three thousand vehicles in production.”

Featured image credit: Doni Castilho / FOTOP / ASO