| Ferdinand Porsche | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 3 September 1875 Maffersdorf, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire |
| Died | 30 January 1951 (aged 75) Stuttgart, West Germany[1] |
| Nationality | Austro-Hungarian, Austrian |
| Children | Ferry Porsche and Louisa Porsche |
| Work | |
| Significant projects | Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, Tiger I, Tiger II, the Elefant, and the Volkswagen Beetle |
| Significant awards | German National Prize for Art and Science |
Ferdinand Porsche[2] (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian automotive engineer and honorary Doctor of Engineering. He is best known for creating the first hybrid vehicle (gasoline-electric), the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, as well as the first of many Porsche automobiles. Porsche designed the 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen, which was the first race car with mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.
He made a number of contributions to advanced German tank designs: Tiger I, Tiger II, and the Elefant as well as the super-heavy Panzer VIII Maus tank, which was never put into production. In 1937, Porsche was awarded the German National Prize for Art and Science, one of the rarest decorations in Nazi Germany.
In 1996, Porsche was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and in 1999 posthumously won the award of Car Engineer of the Century.
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Early life
Ferdinand Porsche was born to German-speaking parents in Maffersdorf (Czech: Vratislavice nad Nisou), northern Bohemia, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in the Czech Republic.
He showed high aptitude for mechanical work at a very young age. He managed to attend classes at the Imperial Technical School in Reichenberg (Czech: Liberec) at night while helping his father in his mechanical shop by day. Thanks to a referral, Porsche landed a job with the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna when he turned 18.[3] In Vienna he would sneak into the local university whenever he could after work. Beyond auditing classes there, Porsche had never received any higher engineering education. During his five years with Béla Egger, Porsche first developed the electric hub motor.
Early career
In 1898, Porsche joined the Vienna-based factory Jakob Lohner & Co, that produced coaches for Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, as well as for the kings of England, Sweden, and Romania.[citation needed] Jakob Lohner had begun construction of automobiles in 1896 under Ludwig Lohner in the trans-Danubian suburb of Floridsdorf.
Their first design, unveiled in 1898, was the "System Lohner-Porsche", a carriage-like car driven by two electric motors, directly fitted within the front wheel hubs, and powered by batteries. This drive train construction was easily expanded to four-wheel drive, by simply mounting two more electric motors to the rear wheels as well, and indeed such a specimen was ordered by the Englishman E. W. Hart in 1900. In December that year, the car was presented at the Paris World Exhibition under the name Toujours-Contente. Even though this one-off vehicle[4] had been commissioned for the purposes of racing and record-breaking, the 1,800 kg of lead acid batteries it required graphically illustrated the limits of this powertrain concept. Though it "showed wonderful speed when it was allowed to sprint",[citation needed] the weight of its huge battery pack meant that it was singularly reluctant to climb hills and suffered from limited range due to limited battery life.
Still employed by Lohner, Porsche reached the logical conclusion and in 1901 introduced the "Mixte" vehicle/transmission concept: instead of a massive battery-pack, an internal combustion engine built by the German firm, Daimler, was fitted to a generator to drive the electric hub motors and (for vehicle reliability) a small battery pack. This way Porsche had created the first petroleum electric hybrid vehicle on record, although since sufficiently reliable gears and couplings weren't available at the time, he chose to make it a series-hybrid, an arrangement currently more common in diesel-electric or turbo-electric railway locomotives than automobiles.
Though over 300 Lohner-Porsche chassis were sold up to 1906, most of them were two-wheel drive—either front- or rear-wheel driven trucks, buses and fire-engines. No further four-wheel-drive passenger cars were manufactured, however some buses were fitted with it.
The up to 56 km/h (35 mph) fast carriages broke several Austrian speed records, and also won the Exelberg Rally in 1901 with Porsche himself piloting a front-wheel drive hybrid specimen. It was later upgraded with more powerful engines from Daimler and Panhard, which proved to be enough to post more speed records. In 1905, Porsche was recognized with the Poetting prize as Austria's most outstanding automotive engineer.
In 1902, he was drafted into military service. He served as a chauffeur to Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the crown prince of Austria whose assassination sparked World War I a mere decade later.
Austro-Daimler
In 1906, Austro-Daimler recruited Porsche as their chief designer. Porsche's best known Austro-Daimler car was designed for the Prince Henry Trial in 1910, named after Wilhelm II's younger brother Prince Heinrich of Prussia. Examples of this streamlined, 85 horsepower (63 kW) car won the first three places, and the car is still better known by the nickname "Prince Henry" than by its model name "Modell 27/80".
Porsche had advanced to Managing Director by 1916 and received the honorary doctorate degree, "Dr. techn h.c." from the Vienna University of Technology in 1917 (hence the "Dr. Ing h.c" in his name, meaning "Doktor Ingenieur Honoris Causa"). Porsche successfully continued to construct racing cars, winning 43 out of 53 races with his 1922 design. In 1923, Porsche left Austro-Daimler after differences ensued about the future direction of car development.
Only a few months later Porsche landed a new job as Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft's Technical Director in Stuttgart, Weimar Germany, which was already then a major hub for the German automotive industry. He received another honorary doctorate from the Stuttgart Technical University for his work at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in Stuttgart and later the honorary title Professor. While at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, he came up with several very successful race car designs. The heavy series of models equipped with superchargers that later culminated in the Mercedes-Benz SSK dominated its class of motor racing in the 1920s.
In 1926, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie merged into Daimler-Benz, with their joint products beginning to be called, Mercedes-Benz. Porsche's concept of a small, light-weight Mercedes-Benz car was not popular with Daimler-Benz's board, however. He left in 1929 for Steyr Automobile, but the Great Depression brought about Steyr's economic collapse and Porsche ended up being unemployed.
Founding of Porsche
In April 1931 Porsche founded his consulting firm, Dr. req. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionen und Beratungen für Motoren und Fahrzeugbau, in Stuttgart, where he returned. With financial backing from the Austrian advocate Anton Piëch and Adolf Rosenberger, Porsche successfully recruited several old co-workers he befriended at his former places of employment including Karl Rabe, Erwin Komenda, Franz Xaver Reimspiess, and his son, Ferry Porsche.
Their first project was the design of a middle class car for Wanderer. Other commissioned designs followed. As the business grew, Porsche decided to work on his own design as well, which happened to be a reincarnation of the small car concept from his days at Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. He financed the project with a loan on his life insurance. Later Zündapp decided to help sponsor the project, but lost interest after their success with motorcycles. NSU then took over the sponsorship, but also lost interest due to the high tooling costs.
With car commissions low in the depressed economic climate, Porsche founded a subsidiary company Hochleistungs Motor GmbH (High Efficiency Engines Ltd.) in 1932 to develop a racing car, for which he had no customer. Based on Max Wagner's mid-engined layout 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen, or "Teardrop" aerodynamic design; the experimental P-Wagen project racing car (P stood for Porsche), was designed according to the regulations of the 750 kg formula. The main regulation of this formula meant that the weight of the car without driver, fuel, oil, water and tire was not allowed to exceed 750 kg.
In 1932 Auto Union Gmbh was formed, comprising struggling auto manufacturers Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Baron Klaus von Oertzen wanted a show piece project, so at fellow director Adolf Rosenberger's insistence, von Oertzen met with Porsche, who had done work for him before. At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced two new programs:
- The people's car: Hitler made it his political agenda to motorize the nation, and that every German should own either a car or a tractor in the future.
- A state-sponsored motor racing programme: to develop a "high speed German automotive industry," the foundation of which would be an annual sum of 500,000 Reichmarks to Mercedes-Benz
The announcement led to two projects for Porsche, and set a precedent for the rest of the decade with Porsche accepting further projects from Nazi Germany, latterly including military vehicles from the Panzer, Tiger Tank and the Elefant tank destroyer.
Volkswagen Beetle
In June 1934, Porsche received a contract from Hitler to design a "people's car" (or Volkswagen), following on from his previous designs such as the 1931 Type 12 car designed for Zündapp. The first two prototype cars were completed in 1935. These were followed by several further pre-production batches during 1936 to 1939. The car was similar to the contemporary designs of Hans Ledwinka of Tatra, which resulted in a lawsuit against Porsche settled by Volkswagen only several years after World War II. A new city, "Stadt des KdF-Wagens", near Fallersleben was founded for the Volkswagen factory, but wartime production concentrated almost exclusively on the military Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen variants. Mass production of the car, which later became known as the Beetle, commenced after the end of the war. The city is named Wolfsburg today and is still the headquarters of Volkswagen Group.
Auto Union racing car
German racing driver Hans Stuck had met Hitler before he became Chancellor, and not being able to gain a seat at Mercedes, accepted the invitation of Rosenberger to join him, von Oertzen and Porsche in approaching the Chancellor. In a meeting in the Reich Chancellery, Hitler agreed with Porsche that for the glory of Germany, it would be better for two companies to develop the project, resulting in Hitler agreeing to split the money between Mercedes and Auto Union with 250,000 Reichsmark to each company. This highly annoyed Mercedes, who had already developed their Mercedes-Benz W125, and resulted in a heated exchange both on and off the racing track between the two companies for the period until World War Two.
Having garnered state funds, Auto Union bought Hochleistungs Motor GmbH and hence the P-Wagen Project for 75,000 Reichsmark, relocating the company to Chemnitz. As Porsche became more involved with the construction of the Wolfsburg factory, he handed over his racing projects to his son, Ferry. The dominance of the Silver Arrows of both brands was only stopped by the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
Post war
In November 1945 after the war, Porsche was asked to continue the design of the Volkswagen in France and to move the factory equipment there as part of war reparations. Differences within the French government and objections from the French automotive industry put a halt to this project before it had even begun. On 15 December 1945, French authorities arrested Porsche, Anton Piëch, and Ferry Porsche as war criminals. While Ferry was set free soon, Ferdinand and Anton were held in a Dijon prison for 20 months without trial.
While his father was in captivity, Ferry tried to keep the company in business, and they also repaired cars, water pumps, and winches. A contract with Piero Dusio was completed for a Grand Prix motor racing car, the Type 360 Cisitalia. The innovative 4WD design never went into races, but the money it raised for Porsche was used to redeem Ferdinand Porsche from French prison.
The company also started work on a new design, the Porsche 356, the first car to carry the Porsche brand. The company was located in Gmünd in Carinthia at the time, to which they had evacuated from Stuttgart to avoid Allied bomb raids. The company started manufacturing the Porsche 356 in an old saw mill in Gmünd. They manufactured 49 cars, which were built entirely by manual labor.
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| Type | Societas Europaea, (Xetra: PAH3), (FWB: PAH3) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1931 |
| Founder(s) | Ferdinand Porsche |
| Headquarters | Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Ferdinand Oliver Porsche, Founder Wolfgang Porsche, Chairman Dr. Martin Winterkorn, President & CEO |
| Products | Automobiles |
| Services | Automotive financial services, engineering services |
| Revenue | €7,466 million (2007/8) |
| Operating income | €8,589m (2007/8) |
| Profit | €6,392m (2007/8) |
| Owner(s) | Porsche family Qatar Investment Authority (10%) |
| Employees | 12,202 (2007) |
| Subsidiaries | Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH Volkswagen AG Porsche AG |
| Website | Porsche-SE.com |
| References: scheduled to be merged under a mutual Volkswagen AG/Porsche SE "Integrated Automotive Group" in 2011[1][2] | |
Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE (German pronunciation: [ˈpɔʁʃə][3]) a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry.
Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a city district of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg and is owned by the Piëch and Porsche families, and Qatar Holdings, through the Qatar Investment Authority (10%).[4] Through its investment in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH, it owns 50.1% of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, which is the manufacturer of a range of sports cars and SUVs, and 50.7% of Volkswagen AG.
The company was founded as Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche,[5] an Austrian engineer born in Maffersdorf, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Porsche's son-in-law Anton Piëch, an Austrian advocate.
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Corporate structure
Porsche SE was spun out of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG (Porsche AG) in June 2007 and became a holding company for its stake in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH (50.1%) (which in turn holds 100% of Porsche AG) and Volkswagen AG (50.7%).[6][7] Since December 2009, Porsche SE lost control Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH, which as a result is now a joint venture between Porsche SE and Volkswagen AG. In August 2009, Porsche SE and Volkswagen AG reached an agreement that the two companies would merge in 2011, to form an "Integrated Automotive Group".[1][2]
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG (which stands for Doktor Ingenieur honoris causa Ferdinand Porsche Aktiengesellschaft), is responsible for the actual production and manufacture of the Porsche automobile line. The company currently produces Carrera (997), Boxster and Cayman sports cars, the Cayenne sport utility vehicle and the four-door Panamera. There are future models currently being developed by Porsche in Stuttgart, Germany.
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