Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche: 3 September 1875, Maffersdorf, Austria-Hungary – 30 January 1951, Stuttgart, Germany.

One of the world’s most famous automotive designers, he is remembered both as Porsche’s founder and as the creator of the twentieth century’s most popular car, the Volkswagen Käfer.

He was born into a Sudeten German family. His father, tinsmith Anton Porsche, owned a popular repair workshop and was so respected locally that he was elected mayor.

Ferdinand’s elder brother was originally to inherit the workshop but died in a workplace accident. Ferdinand became the heir and began his “career” there at fifteen.

He never doubted that cars were his calling. Even after entering technical school a few years later, he continued working in the workshop each morning.

Later, he audited courses at Vienna University, learning engineering while also working in Lohner’s design office. His goal was a fast electric car that would win Austrian hearts.

Within weeks, his talent produced a successful prototype: a compact car capable of 40 km/h, excellent for the late nineteenth century. Its drawback was weight: bulky lead batteries occupied much of it and provided no more than an hour’s driving. Lohner nevertheless considered it successful and enjoyed driving it. Porsche continued improving his skills.

In 1898, he created the revolutionary first front-wheel-drive electric car and became Lohner’s chief designer. The Lohner-Porsche had two 2.5 hp motors in the front-wheel hubs. With no mechanical transmission, it used an additional petrol engine to drive a generator, producing electricity and charging the battery, which directly powered the traction motors. It thus demonstrated the world’s first hybrid system combining batteries, electric motors and an internal combustion engine. The idea won Porsche the Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair.

Six years later, he became technical director and chief designer at Vienna’s Austro-Daimler. The ADM, ADR, Sascha and Prinz-Heinrich appeared. He also developed military hybrid vehicles and engines for aircraft and airships. During the First World War, these achievements earned him an honorary professorship at Vienna’s technical university, despite lacking a university degree, and a Cross of Merit from the Kaiser.

In 1923, he became chief engineer at Daimler AG in Stuttgart and led development of a two-litre racing car. His work later produced the popular Mercedes S and SS sports models.

In the 1930s, he visited Soviet tank and aircraft factories. He was invited to relocate his design office and work in aviation, tanks and cars. He declined, but the proposal led to one of his greatest mysteries. During the Second World War, German military intelligence demanded Soviet technological secrets, steelmaking details and equipment information. Porsche refused, saying he had no moral right to disclose them because he had nearly concluded a commercial deal and regarded Soviet engineers as business partners. That refusal remained a great mystery.

Meanwhile, the Porsche design office opened in Stuttgart on 6 March 1931 continued developing all types of engines, motorcycles and cars. Zundapp commissioned three Volksauto cars, prototypes of the famous Beetle. Experts argued that this single car alone would have secured his lasting fame.

But the Beetle was only the beginning. During the war, it provided the basis for amphibious and all-terrain vehicles, as well as German fighting vehicles: the Ferdinand self-propelled gun, Tiger (P) and the 188-tonne Maus super-heavy tank.

In 1943, Allied bombing destroyed the office’s archives. Surviving documents and equipment went to Gmünd, Austria. Porsche and his son Ferry, Ferdinand Anton Ernst, worked in a local sawmill until the war ended. Both were arrested in December 1945 in a case brought by the French justice ministry.

Porsche spent roughly twenty months in prison, until 1 August 1947; Ferry was released in March 1946. Charges were subsequently dropped, but Porsche had to remain in the French occupation zone for a year. His health had deteriorated, so he retired from active work and advised his son and colleagues.

After Austria’s liberation, its government froze German property and accounts, including Porsche’s capital. The business urgently sought sponsors and found Swiss advertising-agency owners Blank and von Senger.

Largely thanks to them, the office returned to Germany in 1949, renting workshops from coachbuilder Reutter in Zuffenhausen. On 30 January 1951, Porsche suffered a stroke and died, passing the company to Ferry.