What You Didn't Know About Porsche

10/07/96

Ferdinand Anton Porsche was born in 1875 in Maffersdorf, Bohemia. At the outset he was extremely talented, installing electric lights in his father's house while a teenager and building his first car (with hub mounted electric motors) at 25. In 1905, Porsche was appointed technical head of Autro-Daimler Motors where he designed the Prince Henry model and the Sascha racer. One of his mechanics was Marshall Tito. In 1923 he moved to Daimler-Benz where he was responsible for a series of supercharged sports and racing cars such as the SSK and SSKL. In 1929, at age 54, he formed his own Porsche company, where he designed a Beetle look-alike and the famed V-16 Auto Union race cars. In 1934 he and Hitler mapped out a vehicle, the people's car, or Volkswagen. When the war broke out, he found himself a prisoner of the French until 1947. His family bought his freedom so he could start the design of a new Grand Prix car, but he had a stroke in November, 1950 and died in January, 1951.

Bill Maloney -- The Auto Channel