Cars

Ferdinand Porsche was an automobile engineer with more than a thousand patents to his name and played an important role in the development of airplanes and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht as well In the 1920s he was appointed chief engin
Ferdinand Porsche was an automobile engineer with more than a thousand patents to his name and played an important role in the development of airplanes and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht as well In the 1920s he was appointed chief engineer at MercedesBenz in Stuttgart and later set up his own engineering workshop There he designed among other things the Volkswagen He acted as chief of operations at the plant where the Volkswagen was made Wolfsburg and at the end of the war he was interned by the Allies

He was released a few years later and immediately went to work building his first car with his son Ferry Porsche This car was named the Porsche 356 after Ferry and was a sports car with styling reminiscent of the Volkswagen In fact it had the same fourcylinder boxer engine and wore it rearmounted just as the VW did This meant that it was far from being a powerful sports car boasting a mere 40 bhp and a maximum speed of 87 mph 140 kmh Distinguished by its elegant and innovative body the Porsche 356 was first produced as a convertible and then as a hard top Father and son developed it in the workshop of Erwin Komenda a master of restrained streamlining who had been in charge of sheet metal and design techniques for Ferdinand Porsche since the VW Beetle This new style of closed coupe designed by Komenda soon became the embodiment of the sports car due in part to its fastback

Erwin Komenda and Ferdinand Butzi Porsche the founders 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 Porsches identity even though the design was not always fully appreciated During the 1970s and 1980s 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 peoples 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 1990s 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 inhouse designer Anthony R Hatter as a powerful combination of sports and racing car In 1999 Porsches chief designer proudly unveiled the new Boxster enabling Porsche to establish a second independent range of successful models