Okay, not really but the founder of Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche, was an important developer in the en
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 i ued! Early in his automotive engineering career Ferdinand was chief engineer for none other than Mercedes Benz, after being dismi ed for disagreeing with their engineering methods he started his own engineering firm in Stuttgart where he was re o ible 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 orts 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 eed 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 i ovative fastback design, the 356 coupe became the orts car poster child.
The Porsche tradition of signature orts cars continued to grow and with the introduction of the 911 developed by Butzi Porsche, Ferdinands grandson, and Komenda the popularity of the Porsche nameplate exploded! With the easily distinguishable sloped nose and the big frog eye headlam , the 911 stood apart from the crowd and screamed its name to everyone.
This new Porsche became the cornerstone that Porsche wanted to di lay. 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 timele 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 orts car company.
Many people do not realize what a prolific inventor this man was, he had over one thousand patents i ued! Early in his automotive engineering career Ferdinand was chief engineer for none other than Mercedes Benz, after being dismi ed for disagreeing with their engineering methods he started his own engineering firm in Stuttgart where he was re o ible 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 orts 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 eed 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 i ovative fastback design, the 356 coupe became the orts car poster child.
The Porsche tradition of signature orts cars continued to grow and with the introduction of the 911 developed by Butzi Porsche, Ferdinands grandson, and Komenda the popularity of the Porsche nameplate exploded! With the easily distinguishable sloped nose and the big frog eye headlam , the 911 stood apart from the crowd and screamed its name to everyone.
This new Porsche became the cornerstone that Porsche wanted to di lay. 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 timele 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 orts car company.
