Ges.m.b.H. as a central office for the management of Volkswagen imports, sales and customer service in Austria. These agreements with Volkswagenwerk, already a major manufac turer at the time, gave Porsche the security the young company needed, particularly in financial terms. And it set the foundation for the ongoing development of Porsche KG as a manufacturer of sports cars.

1950: Return to Stuttgart

With the Porsche 356 developing into a genuine success, the provisional plant in Gmünd was soon unable to provide the production capacities required for the ongoing project. A further point was that the technical equipment and facilities available in Austria were simply not sufficient and economic conditions in this Alpine region were still too difficult.

At the time it was still unclear whether the future of the Company would really lie in the construction of sports cars. While Type 356/2 was already selling successfully and gave reasons for optimism, Ferdinand Porsche as the Senior Director still focused primarily on the pro duc - tionof diesel tractors and water turbines – and he believed that the Company would generate higher revenues by working on behalf of other principals, as before, rather than with its own car production. Ferry Porsche, on the other hand, believed in the ongoing success of his idea and wanted at least to build a series of several hundred cars. So in 1949 he sought to return to Stuttgart as a major car production city.

Since the former Porsche Plant in Spitalwaldstrasse 2, Zuffenhausen, was still being used by the Americans, Ferry Porsche decided for the time being to establish an office and a small test workshop in Porsche’s Stuttgart mansion. Preparations for the move were made by Ferry Porsche’s school friend Albert Prinzing, who in November 1949 was appointed Co-Managing Director of Porsche Konstruktionen GmbH in Stuttgart. At the end of the year Porsche GmbH rented a 600-square metre production hall from Karosseriewerke Reutter & Co. GmbH, a coachbuilder in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, at the same time giving Reutter the assignment to build 500 car bodies. “And since Reutter had no experience in welding light alloy, we had to switch over to a steel-bodied coupé”, said Porsche.