In the 1920s, Porsche was the chief engineer in the famous Mercedes-Benz Company in Stuttgart. He later started his personal engineering plant where he developed a number of designs such as the Volkswagen. This was in Wolfsburg, where he was the head of operations. Volkswagen [VW], is now majority owned by Porsche. At the time of writing this article, there is worldwide crisis in the automobile market. The share price of VW rocketed, when it was announced that Porsche would be buying a larger stake in VW, thereby securing VW for the longer term. This now gave Porsche a foothold into the car companies owned by VW, like for example Audi.
When the Great War came to and end, the Allies imprisoned him. Several years later, he was released and was thus able to design his maiden car with the help of his son, Ferry Porsche. This design was known as the Porsche 356, which was a sports car that was similar in design to the VW. For example, they both used a four-cylinder boxer engine that was mounted in the rear. Although this model was a sports car, it is was a powerful race car, having a speed limit of 87 mph and 40 bhp. In addition the 356 was developed as a convertible but was later redesigned as a hard top car.
The car was produced in the workshop of an expert at restrained streamlining, known as Erwin Komenda. Erwin had been responsible for design techniques and sheet metal assembly at Porsche from the time of VW Beetle [a VW Beetle was in the ‘Herbie’ films of the 70s]. He was the one who came up with the design of the closed coupe, which started a tradition of sports cars. This fastback design was enhanced both by Erwin and Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ Porsche, Porsche’s grandson, when they designed the 911 series. There were a number of distinctive features that made the Porsche 911 stand out. It had a sloping bonnet that resulted in the ‘frog-eye’ headlights and curves running in straight lines from the windscreen’s top edge up to the rear bumper.