Porsche vintage cars
Porsche 928 S4GT
„It simply must be a Porsche!“ – by these words, young Tom Cruise borrows his father’s 928 over the weekend, and many cinemagoers will agree with him. As Porsche is understood as a synonym for super-fast dream cars worldwide. For more than half a century, Porsche has been delivering some of the world’s fastest and most attractive sports cars, which are extremely successful in the international motor sport. Posters of this vintage brand still adorn the walls of youths’ rooms, and Porsche has an excellent image in the specialised press.
More than a century after the founder and the man who gave his name to the company made his first design concepts that should point the way to the future, Porsche sells more vehicles today than ever before. And in the racing sport, too, Porsche’s presence is stronger than before.
Porsche’s history has many facets. It doesn’t just revolve around the development of fast and elegant sport cars, but includes tradition, brand-consciousness and sportsmanship – all this is irrevocably intertwined with the famous models of yesterday and today.
The company’s history is inseparably connected with two men. The first one was Ferdinand Porsche, the company’s founder and chief designer – without him, Porsche wouldn’t exist and the racing world of the 20s and 30s would have lacked several excellent racing cars. The second one is his son and namesake, called Ferry for short. He followed his father’s tracks and characterized Porsche’s design from the 50s to the early 70s. Under his direction, many of the most desirable and successful Porsche models were created.
These two men, supported by an excellent team of engineers, have developed and built some of the world’s most innovative cars and put them on the road or on the racing track – from the beginnings of the motor sport until its golden age. This was not always easy; both even landed in prison for it. They always fought for the idea that the name Porsche should always embody the spirit of the company.
“We build sport cars exclusively“ – is a well-known sentence of Ferdinand – and both remained faithful to this motto. Together with their staff they believed in what they did – a philosophy that paid off in the end.
Porsche 356/001
The first Porsche – the triumphant progress of the 356
With the appearance of three of the world’s greatest producers of sports cars, a new era
in the history of automobiles started in the years right after World War II. In Italy, a series of classics emerged bearing the name of Enzo Ferrari; in England, David Brown bought Aston Martin at a price of 75,000 Pounds Sterling, and in Germany, the longstanding dream of Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche to build their own sports car finally came true.
The rise of the family enterprise Porsche
It could not have been more difficult for the Porsche family to revive their company after the war. Germany was beaten, the big cities lay destroyed after the Allies’ bomb attacks, almost no communications network existed and the economy was practically bankrupt. Some members of the Porsche family had been imprisoned, among them professor Ferdinand Porsche, his son Ferry and the son-in-law Anton Piech. When the now 70 year old professor was released, he was in bad health and in low spirits due to the accusations of the French authorities who declared (wrongly) that he had be a criminal of war.
The company’s headquarters in Stuttgart hat been occupied by members of the American forces. The team which was responsible for the development of the legendary beetle and the sensational Grand-Prix car of the Auto-Union suffered for the shame to have to repair and service garden tools, old cross-country vehicles and agricultural machines. During the next two years, the family Porsche’s gloomy future prospects remained unchanged. The successful 30s were long past. But like the proverbial Phoenix rose from the ashes, the company soon seriously turned its attention to developing motor vehicles. Only – this time they wanted to build them, too.
Ferdinand Porsche had spent the major part of his adult life working for others. Before the war, he had developed many successful concepts, among others for Austro Daimler and Daimler Benz, and had soon found out that his employers made much more money from his work than he himself.
At that time, Mr. Porsche was already beyond 50, and the pragmatic saw himself as a talented engineer who had no time for the quarrels and internal procedures of big enterprises.
The first Porsche construction office designed everything in connection with transport. On the background of the worldwide recession and galloping inflation, he founded his own construction office on 25 April 1931, the Porsche Construction Office for the construction of motor vehicles and watercrafts, which was prepared to design everything concerned with transport in any way: road vehicles, trains, boats and aircrafts. The small team worked on many projects, e.g. for the development of small cars for the motorcycle-manufacturer Zündapp and NSU, of which, however, none went into series production, as well as for the grand prix car of the Auto-Union and the air-cooled Volkswagen.
Porsche’s passion was sport cars and motor sport
Porsche’s passion was indeed sports cars and motor sport. More than 60 years ago, it wasn’t easier than today for a small and financially weak company to make this dream come true – to develop and build a sports car which should bear the name Porsche. 1939, Porsche almost succeeded with the type 60K10, a 1.5 l coupe with streamlined light-metal bodywork based on the base structure and chassis of the Volkswagen. The 60K10 was meant for the participation in the rally Berlin-Rome, however, the project was closed after production of just three vehicles as the race couldn’t take place because of the war. Nevertheless, the Berlin-Rome-car has a significance: it marked the professor’s mental turning point and prepared the way for the project number 356 – the first car named Porsche.
The company’s first design was a 2.1 l car for Wanderer. As the professor wanted to avoid the impression that his new company never before was involved in automobile development, this project received the consecutive number 7 instead of 1.
As a consequence, when the work on the 356 started on 11 June 1947, it wasn’t Porsche’s 356th development, but his 349th.
Taking into account the considerable reputation of the old gentleman – he had constructed some of the best racing sports cars in the 20s – this trick seems somewhat superfluous, but Porsche was careful. He thought that some potential customers could mistrust him because of his lack of experience.
When the number 356 was put to paper on 17 June 1947 for the first time, professor Porsche was still in prison. Until his father’s release in August, it was left to Ferry to steer the company through some of its probably most difficult days. First drawings of the 356 prototype were completed in June, and the chassis started moving, driven by Ferry Porsche, in March of the following year for the first time.
The first Porsche sports car
The first Porsche sports car with the chassis number 356-001 was of an obviously different kind as the later standard versions. It was built in the provisional plant, a former sawmill in Gmünd in Carinthia/Austria; it had a tube-frame chassis, a smooth and streamlined body with an open passenger compartment and the 1131 cm³ engine from the Volkswagen beetle with a centre engine construction, with a transmission projecting back into the car’s rear. In the beginning, the prototype had 40 HP engine power. Though the quality of the fuel, which was available in Austria at that time, was bad, Ferry Porsche as well as professor Eberan von Eberhorst (development engineer at Auto-Union before the war) could test the car, and both were equally satisfied. Including the rotary rod and the steering transmission, practically all components came from Volkswagen. The well-formed, curved body made of an aluminium alloy was a design of Erwin Komenda. It was handmade by master Friedrich Weber in only 2 months. This inestimable member of the Porsche team learnt the art of coach-building at Austro-Daimler at the time when Ferdinand Porsche belonged to this company’s board.
On one hand, his strength was his talented craftsmanship, on the other hand, he had a certain affection for the bottle, which sometimes caused a standstill of the production in Gmünd………
The birthplace of the 356
a former sawmill
in Gmünd, Austria
Post-war problems with the production
Overcoming the difficult circumstances during production in these times – even spark plugs had to be smuggled from Germany to Austria – the very first Porsche, with a maximum speed of around 130 km/h was completed on 8 June 1948. It received the official registration number K 42586 and was presented to the automotive press at the Swiss Grand-Prix. Already a few weeks later, Herbert Kaes, one of Ferry’s cousins, achieved a very promising win in this class with this car at a smallish road race in Innsbruck on 11 July. This was a big incentive for the company and very welcome considering the unbelievable difficulties they encountered when trying to produce cars.
The old sawmill in Gmünd was too small, and it was miles from the next railway connection. They had problems with the raising of funds and the supplies of raw materials and components. Many of the tools required for the production and assembly had „disappeared“ after the war. But gradually they got a grip on the situation. Ferry Porsche made an agreement with VW chief Nordhoff for the regular delivery of parts, and a licence fee for every delivered beetle. In June 1948 the old Reichsmark was replaced by Deutsche Mark, the commerce was de-regulated, and the rules of free trading got in force again. While the production slowly continued, Ferry studied the possibility to establish a production site in Stuttgart. The original Porsche plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen was still occupied by the Americans, therefore Porsche rented a small building next-door and additional rooms at the bodywork builder Reutter. This arrangement turned out favourable for both parties, because a contract was concluded with Reutter for the production of the bodies for the first production series of 500 vehicles.
At the same time, the company Gläser received the order for production of the convertible versions. In order to simplify the production, the bodies made by Reutter and Gläser, contrary to those built in Gmünd, were made of steel. Soon orders were received from Holland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Due to the strict import regulations these could not be handled directly, but the company had at least a prospect.
Debut of the Porsche 356 at the Geneva Automobile Salon
When the Porsche 356 had its debut at the Geneva Automobile Salon in spring 1949, several sales to important persons could already be registered, among others to Prince Abd el Moneim. The car met with a throughout positive response from the public and the press, because the new Porsche was – apart from the beetle, on which it was based – something completely different from everything previously produced.
It was indeed a revelation, its design a challenge of the images which existed of conventional sports cars. The engine was in the „wrong“ place and didn’t have water cooling, the mudguard and the headlights were integrated into the bodywork, there was no chromium-plated radiator grille, and the whole, mainly aerodynamically oriented design caused high road performance though the engine was small.
The Porsche 356 gives way to its successor
During the next 15 years, the 356 was further developed, until its time was up and it had to yield to its successor 911, a further Porsche classic, which, as everybody knows today, wrote an unbelievable success story.
But this is the story of the Porsche 356, an automobile which is the classic and genuine Porsche for many people.
From 1948 to 1966, a total of 79,200 vehicles of the type 356 were built; as coupe, convertible and speedster; 49 units of which in Austria (GmünderFahrzeuge) from 1948 to 1951.
