Behind the Scenes: The Story Of Porsche

When you bought your Porsche, you invested in greatness. You invested in a high-quality vehicle with great performance and incredible status. Have you ever wondered about your Porsche’s story? Where did it come from, and how did Porsche as a company come to be?

The founder of Porsche, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche had a history as a successful engineer, seeing as he designed the very first gasoline & electric powered hybrid car in 1900. He became widely known for his car designs and worked with other big companies throughout his career such as Daimler, Mercedes, Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Auto Union and many others. His design firm was also the firm responsible for the Volkswagen Beetle.

Ferdinand’s son, Ferry Porsche, started designing and test driving for his father’s company when he was old enough. Ferdinand actually ended up being arrested as a prisoner of war, and Ferry found himself responsible for maintaining the business and providing for his family. In efforts of doing so, he started creating race cars, resulting in the first-ever Porsche racing car.

The first Porsche was the Porsche 356, which had a rear-mounted 40-horsepower Volkswagen engine and most of its other parts were sourced from wherever Porsche could get them at the time. Europe was recovering from war, so finding parts was tricky. Just one single month after the first 356 left the factory, it won its first race, and the model went into regular production. By 1956, the 10,000th 356 had rolled off the assembly line.

Ferdinand passed away in 1951, but the company kept trekking forward, creating its iconic model in 1963: the 911. The 911 had a 130 horsepower engine and was a complete hit. The 911 was so successful that in 1965, Porsche stopped manufacturing 365s and started producing higher performance vehicles. Through the following years, they pumped out the 912, 914, 924, 944 and 959. By the time 1987 rolled around, Porsche had manufactured 150,000 911s!

From the 50’s through the 80’s, while Porsche was manufacturing sports vehicles, its brand name grew thanks to multiple wins on racetracks around the world. In 1984, the company went public in 1984 and the family kept 50% of shares for themselves. In 1990, Porsche revealed the Tiptronic clutchless manual transmission and replaced that with the dual-clutch PDK system in 2009 in the 911 Carrera. Ferry Porsche passed away in 1988.

Now Porsche has 4 basic models it pumps out in big numbers, the 911 Carrera, the Boxster, the Cayman and the Cayenne sports SUV. Porsche is a company with a great, and successful history that produces world-renowned sports vehicles that don’t seem like they will ever go out of style.