Porsche Before Porsche: Ferdinands First Fifty Years

Ferdinand Porsche was around 72 years old whenairplane engines.
the first hand-made, hand-beaten Porsche 356Daimler merged with Benz in 1926, and the
rolled down the road at Gmund. It was 1948 butcombined board rejected Porsches push for small
Porsche had started his career before the turn ofand light Daimler-Benz cars. Porsche quit and
the century.moved to Steyr where he designed a large luxury
Just what was he doing for his first fifty years?car with a 5.3-liter straight-eight.
The one word answer is plenty. A slightly longerSteyr collapsed in the great depression though,
answer is designing some of the top motoringand in 1930 Porsche was unemployed.
icons and fastest cars of the twentieth century.At the age of 55, when many people these days
Or, getting all the experience, knowledge and skillsare taking early retirement, Porsche opened his
needed to produce one of the hottest and mostown design bureau with a select group of
charismatic lines of sports cars in the world.engineers that he had previously worked with,
It all started in the late nineteenth century.including his own son Ferdinand Ferry Porsche.
Porsches father was a tinsmith, but youngHis first job was the Wander W.17, a small
Ferdinand preferred the new-fangled electricity. Hemedium-priced six-cylinder car. A small car for
worked for an electrical equipment manufacturerZundapp followed. Named the Volksauto, it was
before designing electric automobiles for Lohner.an early ancestor of the Beetle, with a
The Lohner-Porsche, with electric motors in therear-mounted radial engine and fully independent
front wheel hubs, (one of the first front-wheelsuspension. It didnt go into production because of
drives), was exhibited at the Paris exhibition inan upturn in Zundapps normal market of
1900 and won a Grand Prize for 25 year oldmotorcycles.
Porsche.In 1932 Russia offered Porsche the job of State
Porsche kept developing the Lohner. Motors in allDesigner. It was an attractive offer, but he
four hubs made it one of the earliest four-wheelturned it down.
drives and a petrol engine and generator insteadAnother tilt at a small car came from NSU. The
of batteries made it one of the first mixed driveZundapp was dusted of to give the basic ideas,
vehicles. Porsche himself raced one of thebut this time a flat-four air-cooled engine was
petrol-electric cars.used at the rear, along with torsion bar
In 1905, Porsche moved from Lohner tosuspension and swing axles at the back. Three
Austro-Daimler where he became technicalprototypes were built before the project was
Director, and later Managing Director. His firstabandoned, but the VW Beetle was getting closer.
petrol car there was developed into the sportsHot racing cars were still on the drawing board,
model that won the 1910 Prince Henry Trial.with the Porsche team building a real monster for
Cars werent the only mechanical designs of theAuto-Union. It had a 4.4 liter supercharged V16
self-taught automotive genius. In 1912 he designedmounted at the back. With the weight at the
a four-cylinder aero engine. Its layout was aback, swing axles, skinny tires and tremendous
flattened X, almost a flat four.power, (its reported they could spin the wheels at
World War I had Porsche working for the military,100 mph) these cars were a handful to drive, but
designing gun tractors, motorized artillery piecesthey won races!
and an enormous road train carrying an 81-tonMeanwhile, Hitler was also gaining tremendous
gun and pulling four trailers each with eight-wheelpower, and one of his ideas was for a peoples
drive. Total weight was 150 tons! It used thecar. Porsche got the job of designing it, and all his
Lohner-Porsche method of electric motors in theprevious experience went into the best selling car
hubs with a 20 liter, 150 hp traction engineever, the Volkswagen Beetle. Three Beetles were
providing the power.turned into lightweight sports coupes for the
In 1917 he received an honorary doctorate fromproposed 1939 Berlin-Rome road race.
Vienna Technical University.The race never took place because the Second
Porsche turned to small cars after WWI, designingWorld War started.
the Sascha, which could hit 89 mph with a tinyDuring WWII the Beetle was turned into the
1100 cc engine. These cars came first and secondKubelwagen, the German equivalent of the Jeep.
in their class in the 1921 Targa Florio. However,Porsche designed the Tiger, Ferdinand and Maus
differences of opinion with other directors ofTanks, which all used the mixed drive with an
Austro-Daimler led to a move to Daimler ininternal combustion engine driving hub-mounted
Stuttgart, as Technical Director with a seat onelectric motors.
the board.The war ended and the French threw Professor
Here Porsche fixed the poor performance ofPorsche, son Ferry, and son-in-law Anton Piech in
Daimlers new two-liter supercharged race car,prison as war criminals. (Totally unfounded). Ferry
which went on to take the first three places in itswas released after a few months but the
class in the 1924 Targa Florio, including first placeProfessor was kept with France demanding 1
overall. Porsche was awarded another honorarymillion Francs for his release.
doctorate, this time from Stuttgart University forFerry and the design bureau took on new
his achievements.projects to pay the money. When the Professor
At Daimler he designed one of the most famouswas released, the design of the very first
cars of all time, the seven-liter six-cylinderPorsche branded sports car was well under way.
supercharged Mercedes which progressed throughThis car was the 356, the start of a line of
the K and S series to the SS, SSK and SSKL.exciting thoroughbreds which are some of the
These cars dominated racing in 1928-30. As well,most desirable sports cars in the world today.
he worked on diesel engines for trucks and