Ferdinand Porsche Named Finalist for 'Car Engineer of the Century' Award
17 December 1999
Ferdinand Porsche Named Finalist for 'Car Engineer of the Century' Award
Prolific Automotive and Aircraft Engineer and Race Car Designer and Driver
Recognized by Global Media and Car Enthusiasts as Influential Industry Pioneer
ATLANTA, Dec. 16 -- Ferdinand Porsche, an automotive innovator
and a driving force for what has become one of the world's leading sports car
manufacturers, has been selected as one of five finalists for the Car Engineer
of the Century Award. This award, along with the Car Designer of the Century,
Car Entrepreneur of the Century, Car Executive of the Century, and Car of the
Century Awards, are organized by Car of the Century International N.V. and
designed to celebrate the automotive industry's past 100 years.
The independent Global Automotive Elections Foundation, which is made up
of 132 leading members of the automotive community from 33 countries, oversees
the election of category candidates and the selection of category winners.
The category finalists, and ultimately the winners, are determined by votes
from worldwide automotive journalists and enthusiasts alike. Winners will be
announced at the Car of the Century Awards Gala at the Venetian Hotel and
Resort in Las Vegas on Dec. 18, 1999.
Ferdinand Porsche was born on Sept. 3, 1875, in Maffersdorf, Bohemia, and
was the third of five children born to Anton and Anna Porsche. Anton was a
very competent tinsmith who hoped to pass the family business to one of his
three sons, but young Ferdinand instead pursued his blossoming interest in a
new invention, electricity.
His experiments soon paid off when he designed the community's first
residential electric lighting system and installed it in the Porsche
household. This caught the attention of a local factory owner and helped pave
the way for a student employee position at Bela Egger & Co., the Vienna,
Austria-based electrical equipment and machinery manufacturer that later
became Brown Boveri. This was the beginning of a nearly 50-year career that
greatly influenced automotive history with lasting technology such as rear-
engine designs and all-wheel drive systems.
At Bela Egger & Co., Porsche designed an electric wheel hub motor that was
used in 1899 to power the first electric car built by Vienna-based Lohner &
Co. On Sept. 23, 1900, Porsche - who also was a very good driver in addition
to being an ingenious engineer - piloted a racing version of the Lohner
vehicle on a measured section of Semmering Road near Vienna and beat the
previous record by more than eight minutes. Porsche continued to experiment
with the electric wheel hub motor for the next 18 years. He coupled the
design with a petrol engine for cars and created a design hybrid for the
Austrian army's Landwehr train and C train vehicles that were used to move
heavy equipment and supplies.
Porsche joins Austro-Daimler; establishes Dr. Ing.h.c.F. Porsche GmbH
In 1906, Porsche was named technical director of Austro-Daimler, where he
was a pioneer in the aircraft engine design. In 1910, he designed a 90-
horsepower, four-cylinder car that won the Prince Henry Trials with a top
speed of 87 mph - almost 9 mph faster than the competition. In 1917, Porsche
was named general director of Austro-Daimler, and in 1921 he designed his
first small car - the in-line four-cylinder Sascha. In 1922, the Sascha cars
won 51 of the 52 races they entered. During this time, Porsche also busied
himself designing turbines, tractors and wind machines.
In 1923 Porsche became technical director and a member of the board at
what became Daimler-Benz and created the famous Mercedes S, SS, and SSK
compressor models. In 1929, Porsche was named technical director of Steyr-
Werke AG, Steyr, Austria, where he designed both the Type XXX with rear swing
axles and a 5.3-liter, 100-horsepower, eight-cylinder overhead-valve engine.
In 1931, he founded Dr. Ing.h.c.F. Porsche GmbH, an engine and vehicle design
and consulting firm, which designed the 16-cylinder compressor engine for
Auto-Union. Auto-Union Type P rear-engine grand prix racecars dominated
Formula races during the 1930s, and rear-engine designs remained a Porsche
trademark for the next 60 years.
In 1934, Porsche began work on the Volkswagen, another Auto-Union project
that eventually surpassed the Ford Model T in 1972 as history's production
leader. The Volkswagen platform also formed the basis for the rear-engine
amphibious all-wheel drive Kubelwagen military vehicle, and all-wheel drive
has carried over to today's 911 Carrera 4. Porsche also designed important
military vehicles such as the Tiger and Maus tanks.
Ferdinand Porsche died in Stuttgart on Jan. 30, 1951. Soon after World
War II his only son Ferry Porsche designed the Type 356, a rear-engine, air-
cooled, four-cylinder 40-horsepower sports car that was greatly influenced by
Ferdinand's innovations. His achievements lived on in the 356 - the first car
bearing the Porsche marque - and are still evident in today's Porsche models.
The rest is history.