Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) was an Austrian automotive engineer who created the popular Volkswagen car (‘people’s car.’) Founder of the Porsche car company, he also designed the distinctive sports car that high-performance sports and racing cars built by his company, initially to his ideas.
Born in Maffersdorf, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, now in Liberec, Czech Republic, Porsche designed cars for Daimler and Auto Union but set up his independent studio in 1931. In 1934 he created the plans for an innovative cheap car with a rear-engine, to which the Nazis gave the name Volkswagen (‘People’s car’) and agreed to mass-produce for the German workers. After World War II, the ‘Beetle,’ as it was identified, became a record-breaking German export.
Porsche is also commemorated for creating the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner-Porsche,) the Volkswagen Beetle, the Auto Union racing car, and the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK.
German journalist and racecar driver Richard von Frankenberg wrote the biography Porsche: The Man and His Cars (1961.)
The Porsche Museum began in Zuffenhausen, near Stuttgart, in 2009.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ferdinand Porsche
If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself.
—Ferdinand Porsche
Topics: Failure
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