For the Love of the Sports Car

The successful story of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, as the Company stands today, would be inconceivable without the lifetime achievement of Ferry Porsche. For it was under his guidance that the engineering office established by his father Ferdinand Porsche became an independent car manufacturer presenting the first sports car to bear the name Porsche in 1948 – Porsche Type 356.

“At the beginning I looked around, but I could not find the car I was dreaming of. So I decided to build it myself.” Building the Porsche 356 and, later, the Porsche 911, Ferry Porsche consistently lived out his dream of “driving in its most beautiful form”. With a precise feeling for each and every detail, he set the foundation for the Porsche brand values applicable to this very day. As the Managing Director and Chairman of the Supervisory Board he shaped the destiny of the Porsche Company for five long decades. In particular, it was his achievement as a visionary and an outstanding entrepreneur to make Porsche the world’s leading manufacturer of sports cars.

When Professor Dr. Ing. h.c. Ferdinand Anton Ernst “Ferry” Porsche passed away on 27 March 1998, he left the world as one of the last great automobile men. His lifetime achievement for the automobile gave him a position in the European Automotive Hall of Fame, his name is mentioned together with the likes of Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz, Henry Ford or Enzo Ferrari. On 19 September 2009 Ferry Porsche would be celebrating his 100th birthday.

A Childhood Among Cars

The son of automotive engineer and constructor Ferdinand Porsche and his wife Aloisia, Ferry Porsche was born in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, on 19 September 1909. The fact that the automobile was to shape his life and destiny became apparent on the very first day of his life: On the day of his birth, Ferry Porsche’s father Ferdinand was at the wheel of the Austro-Daimler racing car he had built himself, scoring a class victory in the Semmering Hillclimb Race.