How Ferdinand Porsche Built an Automotive Legend
![1939 Porsche Type 64](https://robbreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/porsche-feature-e1721930921576.jpg?w=1024)
Tristan Fewings
In the 21st century, the Porsche name is associated with powerful and refined sports cars, high-performance sedans and SUVs, and total dominance in motorsports. It all started with one man: Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian engineer and businessman. Far beyond the founding of his company, Ferdinand Porsche was a critical player in the evolution of the automobile and the establishment of a global car industry, earning him the posthumous title of Car Engineer of the Century. Here’s how a young Austrian boy with no engineering degree shaped the automotive era.
-
Early Years
Image Credit: Keystone Ferdinand Porsche was born in 1875 in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary, in what is now the Czech Republic. Young Ferdinand was fascinated by engineering and electricity. As a teen, he worked in his father’s mechanic shop during the day, attending classes at Imperial Polytechnical College at night.
At 18, Ferdinand Porsche was hired by Béla Egger & Co., a maker of electric motors in Vienna. He constructed the company’s first electric hub motor, a self-contained motor unit built into its own wheel—a design used in e-bicycles and many other low-speed electric vehicles today.
-
Building the World’s First Hybrid Automobile
Image Credit: Porsche Around 1897, Porsche left Béla Egger & Co. for coachbuilder Jakob Lohner & Co. in Vienna. The company made royal coaches for monarchs in Europe and England, and had just begun building electric horseless carriages. The company’s early vehicles showed great technical promise, but they were severely limited by the weight of their massive batteries.
In 1901, Ferdinand Porsche came up with a strikingly futuristic solution, installing a Daimler internal-combustion engine in a Lohner coach. The engine would drive a generator to power the electric motors and charge a small backup battery. It was the world’s first hybrid-electric vehicle, more than 100 years before hybrids would come into vogue. The company would sell more than 300 Lohner-Porsche Mixte Hybrids, used as buses, trucks, and fire engines.
In 1906, Porsche left Lohner to become chief designer at Austro-Daimler, the Austro-Hungarian division of engine maker Daimler. He created impressive vehicles that won numerous races, and by 1916 he was named managing director. Despite having never completed a degree, that same year he was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from Vienna University of Technology.
-
Porsche and Mercedes
Image Credit: Keystone In 1923, Porsche moved to Stuttgart, Germany, and became technical director at Daimler. The company had been at the forefront of automobile design and engineering since the very beginning, and here, Porsche could work on the most cutting-edge race cars in the world. Daimler merged with Benz & Cie in 1926, creating Daimler-Benz. Porsche would contribute to Benz’s series of revolutionary supercharged race cars, culminating in the paradigm-defining Mercedes-Benz SSK.
By now, Porsche had solidified his philosophy for car design. He preferred smaller cars, which could achieve speed and efficiency through light weight and innovative packaging. He pushed Daimler-Benz to invest in such machines, but the company’s leadership chose instead to focus on large, heavy, luxurious vehicles. Porsche left the company in 1929.
-
The Founding of Porsche
Image Credit: Heritage Images In 1931, Porsche launched his own company, creatively named “Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionen und Beratungen für Motoren und Fahrzeugbau”—the Dr. of Engineering (Honorary) Ferdinand Porsche Company for Design and Consulting Services for Motors and Vehicles. Porsche didn’t intend to build his own cars; rather, this was an engineering consulting firm, staffed by engineers Porsche had met during his work. The Porsche company designed automobiles for German manufacturer Wanderer and other early car companies, and Ferdinand Porsche continued to develop his lightweight car idea that had been turned down by Daimler-Benz. He also began work on a mid-engine aerodynamic race car concept. In 1932, four struggling German automakers joined together to form Auto Union, purchasing Porsche’s mid-engine race car design and developing it into the Auto Union Type A, B, and C race cars.
-
Porsche and Hitler
Image Credit: Universal History Archive In 1933, at the Berlin Motor Show, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced two government programs intended to jump-start the German auto industry. The first was a state-sponsored racing program to develop a “high-speed German auto industry,” which would fund the development of the Silver Arrow race cars by Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. The second was the People’s Car program, which would fund the development of an affordable vehicle meant to motorize Germany.
The following year, Ferdinand Porsche and his company were contracted by Hitler’s government to develop the People’s Car. In order to complete the project, Porsche had to renounce his Czechoslovak citizenship (Hitler viewed Czech people as non-Aryan “subhumans”), become a member of the Nazi party, and join the SS. Porsche would become known as “the great German engineer,” contributing work on the Silver Arrow race cars, German military tanks, and the Kubelwagen troop transporter. Porsche oversaw the…
Read More: How Ferdinand Porsche Built an Automotive Legend
2024-07-26 21:00:00