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Porsche History - Ferdinand Porsche owned more than one thousand patents from his engineering creations. He was an automobile engineer, but also helped develop airplanes and construct tanks. He became the chief engineer for Mercedes-Bens in Stuttgart back in the 1920s. However, later he set up his own engineering workshop where he designed the Volkswagen along with several other projects. The Volkswagen was built in a plant in Wolfsburg where he acted as chief of operations. At the end of the war he was arrested along with his son Ferry Porsche as war criminals. His son was released, but he was kept prisoner in Dijon, France for 20 months without trial.
After he was released, he and his son Ferry Porsche went to work building his first Porsche. This was the Porsche 356, a sports car that was reminiscent of the VW Beetle. In fact, it had a rear mounted four-cylinder boxer engine just as the Beetle did. Obviously this was not a powerful sports car, with only 40 HP and maximum speed of 140 Km/Hour (87 MPH). Distinguished by its innovative and elegant body, the Porsche 356 was manufactured as a convertible at first and as a hard top later.
Erwin Komenda and Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche, the founder's grandson, continued this tradition with the 911.
The 911 became instantly recognizable: it had an attractive sloping bonnet reminiscent of the 356, what later became characterized as "frog eye" headlights, curves running from the top edge of the windscreen to the rear bumper, and a straight waistline. From a functional and technical point of view it shared more in common with a BMW 1500, but it retained the distinctive stylistic features of the original Porsche. The new 911 became the keystone of Porsche's identity, even though the design was not always fully appreciated. During the 1970's and 1980's, many Porsche designers attempted to distance Porsche from its legendary design and nearly brought the company to the edge of disaster. The more modern 924 model, "a people's Porsche", developed with Volkswagen, as well as the 928 fell short fulfilling expectations, and failed to allow the company to branch out in new directions and styles.
However, in the 1990's the company seemed to realize that what some perceived as a stylistic straitjacket was in fact a market advantage. During this period Porsche embraced the timeless nature of classic styling to become highly profitable. Nearly forty people now worked in the design department solely dedicated to further improvement of the long running 911. Such developments included the 911 GTI, put forward by the in-house designer Anthony R. Hatter as a powerful combination of sports and racing car. In 1999, Porsche's chief designer proudly unveiled the new Boxster, enabling Porsche to establish a second independent range of successful models.
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