Porsche Independent Service

An Engineering Dynasty

Porsche's story does not begin with the first sports car to wear the name in 1948. It reaches back to the start of the twentieth century, when the young engineer Ferdinand Porsche presented the Lohner-Porsche electric car at the Paris fair — its wheel-hub motors made his name known around the world. As technical director and board member at Daimler he developed the legendary supercharged Mercedes SS and SSK sports cars.

In Stuttgart, Ferdinand Porsche founded the engineering office that laid the foundations of today's Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. A commission from NSU produced the Type 32, a forerunner of the Volkswagen; early VW prototypes were tested from the garage of the family villa, and under his leadership the first Volkswagen production line was established at Wolfsburg before the Second World War interrupted the work.

Under his son Ferry Porsche, a sports car was built in Gmünd, Austria, using Volkswagen components: on 8 June 1948 the lightweight two-seat 356/1 became the first car to carry the Porsche name. The company returned to Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart, set up production at the Reutter works and became an independent car manufacturer. The 356 took its first international class victory at Le Mans, and tens of thousands were built before production ended in 1965.

Its successor was designed with a body shaped by Ferry's son Ferdinand Alexander Porsche: the 911, unveiled at Frankfurt and in production from 1964 with its rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. There followed the mid-engined 914, the all-conquering 917 racer, the front-engined transaxle 924, the V8-powered 928, the technological flagship 959 that won the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986, and the mid-engined Boxster — before the 911 itself moved to a water-cooled six-cylinder engine.