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108-Year-Old Porsche Hybrid Pioneer Car En Route to Los Angeles Auto Show


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VIENNA, Austria--At this month's Los Angeles Auto Show, the German performance automaker will unveil its green plan for a new century - the last one. Next to its new Porsche Cayenne Hybrid SUV, Porsche will show off an electric car from 1900 designed by founder Ferdinand Porsche. This is the predecessor of what Porsche Cars claims was the world's first hybrid car, which followed this one by just a few years. Even Porsche's initial all-electric design was revolutionary, despite the fact that electric cars were fairly common (insofar as any automobile was common) at the turn of the last century. Porsche's electric car was named "most innovative invention" at the Paris World's fair in 1900, notoriety that resulted in the sale of over 300 of the cars.

Porsche workers get ready today to air freight a 108-year-old "zero-emission" car over 6,000 miles from Technical Museum in Vienna to the Los Angeles Auto Show for its first public display ever outside Europe. First shown at the Paris World Fair of 1900 and developed by Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the company by the same name, for Austrian royal carriage manufacturer, Jacob Lohner & Co, this was the world's first advanced electric car and led directly to the production of the first gas-electric hybrid car more than a century ago. This history making car will join the Cayenne Hybrid at its stand at the Auto Show.