Ferdinand Porsche played a crucial role in the development of aeroplanes and racing autos, and the construction of tanks for the Wehrmacht.  He’s a car engineer with over a thousand patents to his name.  He was appointed chief engineer at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart in the 1920s.  Later on , he set up his own engineering workshop and designed among others the Volkswagen.  At the plant where Volkswagen was made, Wolfsburg, he was boss of operations and at the end of the war he was interned by the Allies.

He was released a few years on and began building his first car with his boy, Ferry Porsche.  The car was named the Porsche 356 and it definitely was a sports automobile and a paying homage to the Volkswagen.  It had the same 4 cylinder boxer engine that was rear-mounted, like the VW.  It was very far from being a strong sports vehicle, developing only 40 bhp and a maximum speed of 87 miles per hour ( 140 km/h ).  First produced as a convertible and later as a hard top it distinguished by the very elegant and innovative body.  It was developed in theworkshop of Erwin Komenda, a master of restrained streamlining who had been in control of sheet metal and design methodologies at Porsche since the VW Beetle.  The new style of closed coupe was designed by Komenda and it shortly became the embodiment of the sports car, thanks to its fastback.

This tradition was continued by Komenda and Ferdinand’Butzi’ Porsche, the founder’s grandchild, with the 911. 

The 911 became easily recognizable : it had attractive sloping bonnet and what later was characteristic’frog eye’ headlights, curves running from the leading edge of the windscreen to the rear fender and a straight waistline.  From a functional and technical standpoint it was more like BMW 1500, even though it retained the stylistic features of the original Porsche.  The new 911 will become the foundation stone of Porsche’s identity, even though the design wasn’t always appreciated.  In the 1970s and 1980s, the designers attempts to distance Porsche from its mythical design 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 were far from satisfying the expectancies. 

In the 1990s, the company spotted that what for over 20 years was understood as a straitjacket, it was really a marketadvantage.  During the 1990s, Porsche became highly rewarding since they now knew that the typical Porsche features were timeless.  Almost 40 people now worked in the design department on further developments of the long-running 911.  These developments included the 911 GTI, a robust combinationof sports and racing car, put forward by the in-house designer Anthony R.  Hatter.  In 1999, chief designer proudly presented the new Boxster which enabled Porshe to create a second independent range of models.

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