The story of German car-makers Porsche, who have given us some of the finest supercars in the world.
Professor Ferdinand Porsche founded the company called “Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH” in 1931, with main offices at Kronenstraße 24 in the centre of Stuttgart.
Initially, the company offered motor vehicle development work and consulting, but did not build any cars under their own name.
One of the first assignments the new company received was from the German government to design a car for the people, a Volkswagen (people’s car in German). This resulted in the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the most successful car designs of all time. The Porsche 64 was developed in 1939 using many components from the Beetle.
Porsche’s company logo was based on the coat of arms of Free People’s State of Württemberg of former Weimar Germany, which had Stuttgart as its capital and became part of Baden-Württemberg after the political consolidation of West Germany in 1949.
In 1964, after some success in motor-racing, namely with the Porsche 550 Spyder, the company launched the Porsche 911 another air-cooled, rear-engined sports car, this time with a six-cylinder “boxer” engine. The team to lay out the body shell design was led by Ferry Porsche’s eldest son, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche (F. A.).
Dr. Ernst Fuhrmann, the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Porsche AG was responsible for the so-called Fuhrmann-engine used in the 356 Carrera models, as well as the 550 Spyder, having four overhead camshafts instead of a central camshaft with pushrods, as in the Volkswagen-derived serial engines.
In 1990, Porsche drew up a memorandum of understanding with Toyota to learn and benefit from Japanese lean production methods. In 2004 it was reported that Toyota was assisting Porsche with hybrid technology.
