Porsche

The first sports car bearing the Porsche name rolled out of a small test workshop in Gmund, Austria in June 1948. Back then, none of its founding fathers could have imagined the success story that more than one million descendants of this 'Porsche Number One' have written in the five decades since then. It is from this tradition that we draw the energy to face the challenges of the future. As we understand ourselves (and as countless people throughout the world perceive us), today, Porsche is a mature and vigorous company. Over the past fifty years, it has become the absolute definition of sports-car driving. What is more: despite the zeal for mergers that the large carmakers have displayed recently, we remain thoroughly convinced that the world's smallest independent volume-production automobile manufacturer has the potency and skill to maintain its independence in the future as well. This conviction is not mere hubris; it is based on the certainty that our company is distinguished by a different and very special kind of logic. Porsche is a vital piece of counterevidence that disproves the commonly held theory that a small company can only survive if carried along on the shoulders of a giant. We do not consider size alone, or size at any price, to be a desirable goal; our philosophy is aimed at keeping the company efficient and flexible, both for today and for tomorrow, in all areas. Key Dates: Dr. Ferdinand Porsche establishes his design firm; at the subsequent request of Hitler, Porsche designs the Volkswagen 'Beetle.' Ferry Porsche dies; company celebrates 50th anniversary; joint SUV venture is announced. Porsche AG is legendary for its innovative and beautiful automobile designs. The Porsche 911, first manufactured in 1964, quickly became one of the world's most famous and most recognizable automobiles. The company has also been on the cutting edge of automotive engineering and technology, using the sports car racing circuit to develop and improve products renowned for their high performance and outstanding handling. It is not surprising that Porsche has recorded more victories than any other automobile manufacturer in such classics as the 24-hour LeMans and the 24-hour Daytona races. In 1997 the company successfully introduced the Boxster, a newly designed, lower priced sports car. Plans to design and manufacture a suburban utility vehicle in conjunction with Volkswagen were announced in 1998. The founder of the company, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, was born in Bohemia and studied mechanical engineering in Vienna. In 1923 he traveled to Stuttgart, Germany, and by 1930 the ambitious young man had established his own engineering and design firm there under the name Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche KG. The new firm garnered a reputation for innovative car designs, and when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he summoned Ferdinand Porsche to meet with him, requesting that he find a solution to some of the technical difficulties that were delaying production of the 'Volkswagen,' or people's car. The famous Volkswagen design had been created in Porsche's office, and as early as 1935 Porsche had designed a special sports version of the car. The Nazi regime initially rejected his application to produce the sporting version, but during the late 1930s Hitler himself approved a contract with Porsche to design a car for the 1939 Auto-Union Grand Prix, a famous motor race from Berlin to Rome. Porsche's idea for a racing car was based on expanding the capacity of the utilitarian Volkswagen engine by using different valves and cylinder heads and by including a new system known as fuel injection. The car also included a significantly enlarged wheelbase and a unique aerodynamic body design. Although three prototypes of the car were built in early 1939, the beginning of World War II in September of that year led to cancellation of the race and halted further development of the Porsche car. During the war years, the well-known engineer remained