Dr. Porsche is Car Engineer of the Century

Dr. Ferdinand Porsche - only one of whose accomplishments was the development of the car which bears his name - has been named Car Engineer of the Century. The award has been made by the Global Automotive Elections Foundation - the same organisation responsible for the Car of the Century awards in which the Model T Ford received the number one vote.

Porsche's Petrol - electric car

Dr. Porsche was born on 3rd September in 1875 in Bohemia, and among his first achievements was the design of an electric wheel-hub motor that was used in 1899 to power the first electric car built by the Vienna based Loaner and Co. In a move which is still being exploited, he also developed a hybrid powered vehicle in which the hub electric motor had its electrical power generated by a petrol engine. This design was used in both cars and in the Austrian Army's Landwehre train designed to move heavy equipment and supplies.

In 1906 Porsche became technical director of Austro-Daimler, where he designed aircraft engines as well as a 90-horsepower four cylinder car that won the Prince Henry Trials with a top speed of 140km/h. He also designed a small four cylinder car, called the Sascha, and in 1922 Sascha cars won 51 of the 52 races they entered.

In 1923 Porsche became technical director and a member of the board of the company which was to become Daimler-Benz and was responsible for creating the famous Mercedes S, SS and SSK supercharged models. In 1929 he was named technical director of Steyr-Werke AG in Austria, and two years later he established Porsche GmbH, an engine and vehicle design consulting firm. One of its contracts resulted in the awesome rear-engined, 16-cylinder supercharged Auto-Union Grand Prix car, a design which is still continued in today's Porsches.

In 1934 Porsche began work on the Volkswagen, another Auto-Union project in answer to Adolf Hitler's demand for a cheap to run and operate "people's car". However, the outbreak of World War II put the VW car design on the shelf, although the platform was used as the basis for the German Army's Kubelwagen.

Porsche after the war beside a Kafer

Ironically, it was after the war that the British instigated the production of the Volkswagen car as part of reparation work in Germany. Dr. Porsche was incarcerated for a time after the end of World War II, but after his release he and his son Ferry worked on the design and development, and eventual production of the Volkswagen-based sports car, the Porsche 356.

In 1963 the successor to the 356, the 911 - designed by F.A. Porsche, son of Ferry and grandson of Dr. Ferdinand - was shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show, and the enduring sports car was one of the five finalists in the Car of the Century awards. Dr. Porsche died in Stuttgart on January 30, 1951.

From the Club Veedub Sydney

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