The History of Porsche

911 TARGA

The sports car brand Porsche is literally a big noise in the automotive world. The typical sound of its high-performance engines embodies the ultimate in power and dynamics. The make takes its name from world-famous designer Ferdinand Porsche. With sports car models such as the 356 and 911, and race cars such as the 550 Spyder and the 917, the Porsche family business has created automotive icons of pure passion. Porsche vehicles built in Zuffenhausen and Leipzig are in high demand all over the world, and represent a genuine dream for many automobile lovers. Since August 1, 2012 the high-performance brand has been operating under the umbrella of the Volkswagen Group. The acquisition of the remaining 50.1 percent of shares in Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG by Porsche SE created an integrated automotive concern which had been instigated by an agreement in principle signed on August 13, 2009.

W30 VOR PORSCHE-KONSTRUKTIONSBÜRO IN STUTTGART-ZUFFENHAUSEN
W30 IN FRONT OF THE PORSCHE DESIGN OFFICE IN ZUFFENHAUSEN NEAR STUTTGART

After having undertaken a number of minor projects, in 1933 the design company was awarded the lucrative contract to build a race car for Auto Union. The P-type, weighing 750 kilograms and featuring a mid-mounted engine, was Porsche’s first grand-prix car design, and assured the continued existence of the business. It was followed by a contract from NSU to develop a small car, the Type 32, which with its air-cooled rear-mounted engine, torsion bar suspension and characteristic rounded rear end design exhibited elements of the later Volkswagen. The idea of a low-cost small car for the mass market fascinated Porsche who – like many other designers and engineers at the time – looked to the mass motorisation taking place in the USA. In his “Memorandum on the construction of a German People’s Car”, submitted to the Reich Ministry of Transport on January 17, 1934, Porsche set forth his plan for a fully practical mass-market vehicle. As the “People’s Car” project was backed by the Nazi regime headed by Adolf Hitler, it was taken up by the Reich Automotive Industry Association (RDA), which on June 22, 1934 awarded the independent Porsche design consultancy a contract to develop and build prototypes. The Porsche team solved the technical problems, and Porsche himself became one of the main directors of the company known as “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH” founded in 1937. Porsche’s design consultancy, in 1937 renamed Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche KG, acted as an outsourced research and development function for Volkswagenwerk GmbH.

MONTAGE IN ZUFFENHAUSEN
ASSEMBLY IN ZUFFENHAUSEN

In 1938/39, Porsche KG developed the Type 64 “BerlinRome car”, an in-house sports car concept which is considered to be the grandfather of the later Porsche sports car family. Porsche KG also designed tractors for agriculture, and later tanks and other military vehicles. Bombing raids on Stuttgart in 1944 drove the management to relocate the design office to a former sawmill in Gmünd in the Carinthia region of Austria and the material stores to a f lying school in Zell am See, which also provided the location of the Porsche family seat, known as the “Schüttgut”.

911 TARGA
911 TARGA

Following its launch in September 1964, the new 911 model was to become the cornerstone of the Porsche brand. Seven generations of the model have been built at the facility in Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart since start of production. The 911 has become a by-word for fulfilment of the automotive dream; as elegant as it is exciting to drive and ride in. Getting the new model series into production was a real challenge for the company however. Porsche invested DM 15 million in purchasing a body plant, though to do so it had to withdraw from Formula 1, thereby giving up part of its motorsport activities. The growing reputation of the Porsche brand was further boosted by the race successes of the Porsche 917. Developed under the supervision of Ferdinand Piëch, featuring a 12-cylinder V-configuration engine with an initial 520 hp power output, its many triumphs from 1969 onwards included a string of victories at Le Mans.

VW PORSCHE 914
VW-PORSCHE 914
944
944

After the second oil price shock in 1979, Porsche felt the pressure of competition on international car markets. Cheaper Japanese sports car models penetrating the key US market impacted on the Porsche 924. In 1979/80 Porsche saw its unit sales decline 19.7 percent, though sales revenues held up. Porsche responded to the competitive pressures in 1981 by launching the 944, an economical 4-cylinder car conceived as a sophisticated entry-level model giving access to the brand and linking up the range between the 924 and the 911 SC. It touched a nerve among customers, and from January to September 1982 Porsche sold 4,000 units of the 944 alone. In 1983 the model accounted for 51 percent of its total vehicle sales.

BOXTER S
BOXTER S

Competitive pressures on international markets intensified during the 1980s. Porsche initially managed to keep well on track, achieving its fifth record year in succession in 1985/86, primarily thanks to its strong US business, with more than one in two of its vehicles being exported to the USA. Following the expiration of the agreement with Volkswagen of America Inc. on August 31, 1984, the newly established Porsche Cars North America Inc. began selling cars on its own behalf. By an issue of preference shares on May 4, 1984, Porsche procured additional capital for upgrading, and through to 1988 invested over a billion DM in new installations including an environmentally friendly paint shop and a state-of-the-art paint plant. The development centre in Weissach, home to Porsche’s engineers since 1971, was extensively enlarged. It provided development work for both in-house and third-party vehicle production, including for Airbus, Lada and Volkswagen. In 1981, the developers presented a dual-clutch gearbox which for the first time permitted gear-shifting without interrupting the power f low, and from 1983 onwards was fitted in the Porsche 956.

CARRERA 4 GTS COUPÉ UND CARRERA 4 GTS CABRIOLET
CARRERA 4 GTS COUPE AND CARRERA 4 GTS CONVERTIBLE
WERK LEIPZIG
LEIPZIG PLANT
918 SPYDER
918 SPYDER

The addition of a third model series to the product range – the Cayenne sports utility vehicle built in co-operation with Volkswagen – enabled Porsche to expand its production, opening a new plant in Leipzig in 2002. In August 2002, the Supervisory Board approved the introduction of a fourth model series – a luxury Gran Turismo named the Panamera – which has been in production since 2009, likewise at the Leipzig plant.

CAYENNE DIESEL
CAYENNE DIESEL
PANAMERA S E-HYBRID
PANAMERA S E-HYBRID
The specified fuel consumption and emission data does not refer to a single vehicle and is not part of the offer but is only intended for comparison between different types of vehicles. Additional equipment and accessories (additional components, tyre formats, etc.) can alter relevant vehicle parameters such as weight, rolling resistance and aerodynamics, affecting the vehicle's fuel consumption, power consumption, CO2 emissions and driving performance values in addition to weather and traffic conditions and individual driving behavior. Further information on official fuel consumption data and official specific CO2 emissions for new passenger cars can be found in the "Guide to fuel economy, CO2 emissions and power consumption for new passenger car models", which is available free of charge from all sales dealerships and from DAT Deutsche Automobil Treuhand GmbH, Hellmuth-Hirth-Str. 1, D-73760 Ostfildern, Germany and at www.dat.de/co2.