From Tinsmith Apprentice to Designer
The roots of the Porsche history lie in Bohemia, where Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorf on September 3, 1875. He was the third child of his parents Anton and Anna Porsche. At the time the automobile was being invented, Ferdinand Porsche was 11 years old. Electricity held a particular fascination for him. At the age of 13 he installed electric bells in his parents’ house and provided it with electric light when he was 16.
After finishing his apprenticeship in his father’s business, the technically talented and highly motivated Ferdinand Porsche started his job career with Vereinigte Elektrizi-
tätswerke Bela Egger & Co. in Vienna in the year 1893. Shortly before the turn of the century, Ferdinand Porsche started to work for the Lohner Imperial Royal Court Coach Factory in Vienna. With his development of the wheel-hub motor Porsche had the international audience at the Paris World Fair stunned in the year 1900. It was there that he presented a vehicle with four driven wheels: the first four-wheel drive vehicle in automotive history. Incidentally this construction principle was used by NASA in their lunar vehicle 70 years later. In fact also the first hybrid car in the world - a vehicle with a drive combining internal combustion/electric components - goes back to Ferdinand Porsche.
Ferdinand Porsche, who got married in the meantime and became father of a daughter (Louise *1904) moved to Wiener Neustadt in 1906 where he joined Austro Daimler. Three years later his son Ferry was born. During his 17 years’ activity for this big Austrian enterprise, which he was also to lead as Managing Director, he developed powerful and for the first time aerodynamically shaped limousines. Driving one of them himself he won the “Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt”, the top event of the time. For the Austro-Hungarian army Porsche designed trucks and the “Landwehrzug”, which could move both on the road and on rail. He designed aircraft engines for which he received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Vienna. After World War I, Ferdinand Porsche built the first two-seater sports car, the AD “Sascha”, which won the famous Targa Floria right after being launched.
In 1923, Ferdinand Porsche transferred to Daimler, Stuttgart, where he held the position of Technical Director. He was in charge of designing the famous sports cars, type S, SS and SSK and also developed truck and aircraft engines. He did not renew his contract, but returned to Austria. He first took over the management of the Steyr-Werke and in 1931 Porsche established his own design office in Stuttgart.
