Porsche: The Perfect Car
The thrilling story behind Austrian auto inventor Ferdinand Porsche.
The Porsche is among the world’s most beloved brands of luxury cars. Energy, ambition, and the pursuit of excellence are all reflected in the car’s fast-driving image. Here is the fascinating story behind the car and its namesake, Ferdinand Porsche.
Ferdinand Porsche
Ferdinand Porsche was born on September 3, 1875 in the Austrian village of Maffersdorf. He was raised in the strict and industrious household of Anton and Anne. Tucked away in the mountains, the village was populated by weavers, carpenters, farmers, and tinsmiths. These workers made modest livings for themselves in the service of the regional nobility.
As a boy, Ferdinand enjoyed music and athletics. An aloof child, he often preferred the solitude of casual experiments to the games of the other kids. This was his life’s passion, which put Porsche on a collision course against his domineering father. After the death of his oldest son in an industrial accident, Anton pressured young Ferdinand to take up the family business in the tin industry. But Porsche had other plans.
Maffersdorf’s proximity to Prague and Vienna opened up access to the exciting potential of electricity. Ferdinand ignored his father’s demands, and began to experiment with batteries in the family workshop. His father was outraged, so Porsche simply continued his tinkering in secret in the attic. When Aton learned of his son’s activity, he literally trashed the attic. Unaware of the acidity of batteries, Anton got his pant legs burned up in the process.
Even with his father’s misgivings, the strong-willed Ferdinand continued to pursue his passion. The 15-year-old Porsche finally persuaded his obstinate dad to allow him to take classes at a local technical school. Immersed in the world of electricity, Ferdinand introduced the new technology into his household. He was called upon by his neighbors to electrify their homes as well. Slowly but surely, Anton realized the gifted potential of his precocious son.
Vienna years
At the age of 18, Ferdinand moved to Vienna, where he attended university and worked for Bela Egger, an electrical manufacturing firm. He was attracted by the nascent field of automobiles, a technology still in its infancy at the turn of the 20th century. The young prodigy was hired by Jakob Lohner, a Viennese carriage maker.
Ferdinand produced an unusual design, called the Lohner Porsche. It relied on two small electric engines on the front wheels, rather than a heavy central engine. By propelling the wheels directly, Porsche’s innovative design eliminated the differentials that sapped away power.
The Lohner model was triumphantly displayed in Paris in 1900. Already, by the age of 25, Ferdinand had achieved international recognition.
His next innovation was to develop a gas-and-electric hybrid car. It was an early example of four-wheel drive, using electricity generated from its small gasoline engine. Ferdinand drove the car to Versailles, riding as high as 9 miles per hour. This was unprecedented for the time.
While in Vienna, Ferdinand met his wife-to-be, a woman named Aloisia Johanna Kaes. An independent woman, she worked as a bookkeeper. She was charmed by Ferdinand’s restless passion for cars. The couple drove to met Ferdinand’s parents in a mixed wagon. The young couple married on October 17, 1903. A true workaholic, Ferdinand barely made it to his own wedding, because he was stuck in a business meeting.
Lohner was growing increasingly annoyed by Porsche’s lack of efficiency. Despite his many inventions, Porsche was not making too many sales. He was spending more than he was making. So Lohner parted ways with the young engineer. With his new wife, the 31-year-old Porsche had a young daughter named Louise in 1904. But he couldn’t afford to be idle for long.
Race cars
In 1906, Ferdinand landed a dream job as a technical director at Austro-Daimler, one of Austria’s largest car companies.
An adventurous man by temperament, Porsche loved racing cars. He believed that the real-world was far more exciting than his laboratory. In 1908, the 33-year-old Porsche began producing race cars for his new employer, Austro-Daimler. His cars traveled at speeds topping 75 miles per hour, unheard of at the time.
Ferdinand continued to flourish both professionally and personally. In 1909, he and his wife had their second child, also named Ferdinand, nicknamed Ferry. The day of Ferry’s birth, Porsche won a race using one of his gasoline-electric cars.
WWI
As war grew increasingly likely in Europe, Porsche began to prepare himself by designing more than just cars. He developed several types of aircraft engines. This was at a time when Austria had virtually no air force to speak of.
Porsche’s work provided to be timely. With Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in 1914, WWI broke out. To fuel Austria’s war effort, he designed land trains to transport wartime troops and supplies. This gave Austria unrivaled mobility on foreign terrain. Because of this, he received military honors and an honorary doctorate from Austria’s regime. The 43-year-old Porsche rose to the rank of chairman at Austro-Daimler.
Saschas
Austria was left in ruins after WWI. In this fragile economy, Porsche decided to design some smaller, more affordable cars. However, his bosses were skeptical of his proposal. Ferdinand called his new cars Saschas, named after his racing friend and filmmaker, Count Sascha Kolowrat, who financed his projects.
Porsche moved away from the heavy-built cars that dominated the era. His new cars ran on four-cylinders and eight spark plugs. The additional spark plugs made his cars more efficient and reliable. Three Saschas were used at a Targa Florio sports race in 1922. The course ran as much as 268 miles over rough, hilly roads. Porsche’s small cars handily outcompeted the French and Italian competition. Although the Saschas were great for racing, Porsche’s tiny cars were unprofitable. In autumn of 1922, one of the cars flipped during a race. This was used as an excuse by Ferdinand’s higher-ups to close down his racing car pursuits.
Porsche resigned in anger, and took up a new post in Stuttgart at the German version of Daimler. He attempted to revive Germany’s Daimler brand with his fast race cars, but he clashed with management. Despite this, he managed to produce several lines of successful cars. This included the Mercedes S, SS, SSK, and SSKL. Porsche’s modifications to the German Mercedes were very effective. It allowed the Daimler-Benz company to win the Targa Florio races in Sicily in 1924.
When Porsche’s contract ended in 1928, Daimler did not renew it. The man’s ungracious style of corporate leadership did little to win over his bosses. It was so bad, that Mercedes employees—and even their wives—were threatened with termination for having any ties to Ferdinand.
Porsche’s company
Even still, Porsche continued to be a prolific engineer. Numerous designs were sketched out, but never invented. After three decades of working with Europe’s most powerful automobile companies, the restless 55-year-old announced his intentions to found his own company. He dreamed of creating a universally accessible car, or people’s car. Little did he realize, this benevolent goal would put in contact with one of Europe’s most deposits dictators: Adolf Hitler.
Ferdinand opened his doors of his design company in the early 1930s. The perfectionist Porsche led him to erupt in anger at his employees, and it was extremely difficult to work with him. He was a man enveloped by his own thoughts, which wasn’t good for business. However, Porsche could also be a very generous and warm person. He freely blurred the distinction between personal and commercial life; cars was truly his passion. On many occasions, he continued to speak about business-related matters, to the annoyance of his family members.
Porsche released his Model 7. Soon after, he received a commission from a motorcycle company, the Zundapp Works. They wanted a small car for the average German. Porsche felt it would not be a feasible project. He was concerned about the costs, and knew that ordinary customers would be afraid to ride it. Despite his reluctance, he did find one person crazy enough to try it: Hitler.
Hitler’s Volkswagen
By this time, Germany’s postwar economy was in total ruins. The stock market crashed in 1929, ending the Weimar Republic’s brief golden age of prosperity.
Hitler was elected in 1933 on the promise of bread, work, and honor. His pledges were popular in post-war Germany after the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Fürher wanted to produce a people’s car, which would bolster his popularity and international prestige. At the time, very few Germans could even afford a car. The elites who owned cars usually drove limousines filled with upper-class chauffeurs. The average person had neither the knowledge nor desire to drive a car.
Hitler’s plan for a people’s car was part of his grand strategy to prepare Germany for war against Europe. He sought to build an Autobahn freeway system, which would allow for quick movement of civilians. Hitler’s real interest in the freeways, however, was because of the military conquests he would soon embark on.
In September of 1933, Porsche was summoned to a meeting with Hitler in a Berlin hotel. Hitler demanded a car for Germany’s working man. The Nazi dictator was something of a car enthusiast, and he also understood the technical side of things. Hitler outlined his design ideas to Porsche. One of them was a four-wheel drive and an air-cooled engine. All of it sounded great, but Hitler’s desired price was far too low to be reasonable. Although uncomfortable with the tiny selling price, Ferdinand was still willing to work with the Fürher.
Porsche realized that mass production was the only way to even approximate Hitler’s target goal. In 1937, he and his son Ferry visited Henry Ford’s factory in Detroit.
An admirer of Hitler and a Nazi sympathizer, American industrialist Henry Ford opened up his factories to the Porsches. Ford freely answered their questions. The Porsches brought back many German-Americans to the Third Reich, who used Ford’s method of mass production for what became the Volkswagen Beetle.
Porsche oversaw the construction of a VW plant in Wolfsburg, in Germany’s heartland. The plant produced a few hundred beetles, but after WWII broke out, it was quickly repurposed for military production. Ferdinand may have been oblivious to Hitler’s genocidal schemes, but he still used his ties to the Fürher to secure lucrative weapons contracts. Volkswagens were modified as military jeeps, called the Kubelwagen. Those cars were reliable in the rough terrains of North Africa for the German army.
End of a Reich
By 1944, the Allies were aware of Porsche’s ties to Nazi Germany’s military. They began inflicting regular bombing raids against Porsche’s factories. At night, Ferdinand watched the Allied planes and their bombs using binoculars. Amid Allied bombing, Porsche design offices relocated to the Austrian Alps.
When Nazi Germany was finally overthrown, Porsche and his company worked with the Allied occupiers. Ferdinand was arrested on charges of wartime misconduct by the French government. This was punishment for using slave labor in Porsche’s factories during the Nazi Reich. France was also interested in forcing Porsche to design a people’s car for the French. Now aged 70, Porsche was kept in poor conditions for 20 months in a dungeon in Dijon. His health began to wane.
While Porsche languished in prison, Volkswagen were once again being produced in British-occupied Germany. This was done as a way of providing some temporary employment while the Allies reconstructed post-Hitler Germany.
Ferry and his sister Louise secured Ferdinand Porsche’s release by paying out one million francs to the French government. The 72-year-old Porsche was freed on August 1, 1947.
During Porsche’s imprisonment, Ferry had designed a new car: the Porsche 356. It borrowed the frame and engine of the Nazi-era Volkswagen, but its streamlined body was more refined and sporty. Ferdinand was deeply proud of his son’s work. Ferdinand used his remaining strength to provide some credibility to Ferry’s company, but his health had been ravaged by his incarceration in France. Although sickly and dispirited, Ferdinand was proud to see his life’s work being carried on by his son. He suffered a stroke, and died on January 30, 1951.
The 356
Ferry Porsche emerged as the company’s new leader in the post-war era. Germany was still ruins. Ferry negotiated royalties for his father’s design contributions to the Beetle, and launched his own sports car company. The Porsche 356 was put into production.
He sold cars through VW dealerships, although he cautiously did so. He only produced a few hundred, because he wasn’t sure how well they would sell.
It turned out to be a smash hit. Demand consistently outpaced Porsche’s production. The Porsche 356 happened to be a perfect formula of practicality and speed. Production expanded rapidly. 50,000 cars were sold by 1962.
The 911
Like his father, Ferry turned to racing as a means of publicizing his fast-moving cars. He personally attended the races with his stopwatch and his sons. His oldest son, Bootsy, would take the most active approach in the company.
Starting in the early 1960s, Bootsy began to restylize the company’s cars. By 1963, the 28-year-old became the chief of Porsche’s style department. The Porsche company needed a serious overhaul. The Porsche 356 model was still based on the obsolete Volkswagen of the 1930s.
Bootsy became in charge of the company’s plan to design a successor to the popular 356 model. He focused on making a car that seemed new and old at the same time. What he produced was the Porsche 911. It was sleeker, beautiful, and stylish. With the addition of two cylinders, adding another 35 horsepower, the 911 was capable of crushing at a lightning-pace of 130 miles per hour.
Almost immediately, the 911 became the quintessential sports car. By 1966, 100,000 Porsches had been sold. Boosty was rivaled by his cousin, Ferdinand Piech, who was active in the company’s engineering department. Both sides of the family clashed, and they were reluctant to bring in outsiders. To ease the family’s squabbles, Ferry brought in a new set of engineers in 1972. The Porsche brand became leaner, more efficient, and more lucrative. In 1998, at the age of 88, Ferry Porsche died peacefully at the family estate in Zell am See, Austria.
Today, the Porsche brand still exhibits the perfectionism and pristine elegance of the people who invented it. It remains one of the world’s most prestigious and powerful symbols of opulence, ostentation, and fun-loving sporty joyrides.
I didn’t realize that Porsche was a family name. Cool history