Porsche

With the regrouping within the international industry, manufacturers who still bear their founder's name are becoming rare. Porsche is one of them, and it can be said that the German brand has had a major impact on the automotive industry in more ways than one since the mid-20th century. The philosophy of its managers and engineers has remained constant in both simplicity and perfectionism..

For Ferry Porsche, who took over the family business after the war, the car brand he founded must be closely linked to the competition. His idea is that Porsche buyers regularly see the Bavarian firm's models perform on all the circuits of the world. For him, auto racing is a formidable technologal laboratory that looks ahead to innovations that can then be applied to mass production. All models designed and built by Porsche follow this demanding approach of continuous innovation and improvement. Some models more or less deviated from this principle, but eventually Porsche continued to work in the spirit of permanent evolution as envisioned by engineer Ferdinand Porsche when he founded his mechanical design office in Zuffenhausen on April 25, 1931. 

Taking back the torch 

The "Dr. Ing. HCF Porsche AG" (limited company of honorary engineering professor Ferdinand Porsche) is at the origin of the famous Volkswagen, the "volkswagen" (people’s car) sought after by the Third Reich. In late 1944, the Stuttgart factory was subjected to Allied bombing, prompting Ferdinand Porsche to transfer his business to a former sawmill in the hamlet of Karnerau, in Gmünd, Austria. Until the end of the war, Porsche mainly worked on military projects and from 1946 he started designing light tractors, agricultural machines, winches and hydraulic turbines. The first car to bear the Porsche name, the 356, was born at the same time as the brand's founding in 1948, still in Gmünd, on the initiative of Ferry Porsche, Ferdinand's son. Its name comes from the fact that this is simply Porsche's 356th study project. With this innovative model, Ferry Porsche imposes its vision of a sports car in an aesthetically elegant and technically original way. 

A sporty ambition

In April 1950, the Porsche factories returned to Zuffenhausen, a suburb of Stuttgart, where the company was renamed "Porsche Konstruktions GmbH". The country was under reconstruction and many hill climbing and rallies were organized, with the Porsche 356 prominently featured. However, the German brand's colours are still only defended by private customers because the factory was not financially strong enough to make any official commitments. Despite this, Ferry Porsche, who worked on the famous Grand Prix Auto-Union before the war, remains a strong supporter of the production of derived models. Since then, the entire Porsche production has perfectly integrated this industrial philosophy. The new Porsche 901 Coupé was presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1963. But in the fall of the following year it was renamed 911, because the Peugeot brand asserted its rights and Porsche forced the original name to change. The French manufacturer had officially registered the exclusivity of three digit numbers with a central zero for the designation of its cars. 

Iconic model 

The Porsche 911 is launched not to replace the 356, but to complement it with a more powerful range. This car originated from an initiative of Ferry Porsche who entrusted the study to the engineer Erwin Komenda, the body design to his son Alexander "Butzi" Porsche while the engine design was done by Ferdinand Karl Piëch, his cousin. The Porsche 911 is part of the Automotive Hall of Fame and since its launch, no fewer than eight generations of 911s have succeeded each other. Almost 60 years after its inception, it is still in the manufacturer's catalog, and the Porsche design office has shown incredible ingenuity to make a multitude of changes to this model, most notably the 930-Turbo version in 1974. In the late 1960s, Porsche tried to break its single model culture with the 914 (1969), then the 924 in 1976 (the first Porsche with a front engine), the 928 (1978), the 944 (1981) or the 959 of a Group B prototype. More recent creations include the Boxster (1996) and the 4X4 Cayenne (2002) that contribute to the global success of the brand, which has become the most profitable in the world.