Did You Know That Porsche Once Built Airplanes And Tanks?
Okay, not really but the founder of Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche, was an important developer in the engineering of airplanes and race cars plus in tank building for the Wehrmacht.
Many people do not realize what a prolific inventor this man was, he had over one thousand patents issued! Early in his automotive engineering career Ferdinand was chief engineer for none other than Mercedes Benz, after being dismissed for disagreeing with their engineering methods he started his own engineering firm in Stuttgart where he was responsible for the design of the Volkswagen Beetle that be came so popular.
After the second world war, Porsche began building cars with Ferry Porsche, his son and they called their first car the Porsche 356. The car was a small sports car very similar in design to the VW with the same four cylinder rear mounted engine.
It was a far cry from the Porsche we know today with only 40 horsepower and a maximum speed of only 87 miles per hour. They first designed the 356 to be a convertible but later it was redesigned as a coupe by Erwin Komenda, a master designer for Porsche who had been the head of that department since the days when they developed the Beetle. With its new innovative fastback design, the 356 coupe became the sports car poster child.
The Porsche tradition of signature sports cars continued to grow and with the introduction of the 911 developed by Butzi Porsche, Ferdinand’s grandson, and Komenda the popularity of the Porsche nameplate exploded! With the easily distinguishable sloped nose and the big frog eye headlamps, the 911 stood apart from the crowd and screamed its name to everyone.
This new Porsche became the cornerstone that Porsche wanted to display. Attempts to move away from the roots by building cars like the 924 and 928 almost ruined the company and were nowhere near as popular as it had been thought they would be.
After narrowly escaping financial disaster in that partnership with VW on the 924 and 928, the company came to the realization that what some of the engineers had thought of as being limiting was not that at all but was actually a niche market unto itself with the timeless features of the Porsche 911 design.
Now the company went to work with a design team that focused solely on improving the 911 and by 1999 the company released the all new Boxster, re-establishing the popularity of the sports car company.
Gregg Hall
View all articles by Gregg Hall
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