Ferry Porsche – Driven To Write

Deviating Fortunes

How an ultimately doomed American car manufacturer unwittingly laid the financial foundation of one of today’s most successful sports car makers.

Ferdinand Anton Ernst (better known as Ferry) Porsche visited the USA for the first time in his life in December 1951. The 42-year old general manager of Porsche AG; his father Ferdinand Senior having passed away earlier that year, was there to carry out consulting work on a military vehicle project for the US Army as well as to discuss sales and distribution with Max Hoffman, Porsche’s importer and distributor for North America.

During that meeting Hoffman suggested to Porsche that providing consultancy services for American carmakers might be a lucrative idea for the enterprising young firm. Shortly before, Hoffman had met with longtime Studebaker executive Richard A. Hutchinson to discuss the future of the American car market and he suggested that Studebaker should offer a true economy car, a kind of American Volkswagen, instead of trying to Continue reading “Deviating Fortunes”

The Humble 911

Musing on purity – Porsche style.

By humble, allow me to draw your attention towards the base model – if indeed one can deign to call anything from the house of Porsche bog standard? Motor journalists of this world along with, it would seem, most people with blood racing fervently require the cream: the Turbos, the GTs, the ones immortalised in computer game-land.

£82,795 is the price of a basic Carerra typ 992 in the United Kingdom. For your hard earned, you get 385PS, and 182mph v-max. 0-62 mph takes a mere 4.2 seconds. Petrol consumption is mid twenties. Probably the most important figure however being the one perched behind the wheel of such a vehicle for just over £1200 per month. Don’t ask for the end-game value. And no, they don’t Continue reading “The Humble 911”

Theme: Porsche – Cheaper by the Million

Zuffenhausen recently celebrated production of the millionth 911. How the heck did that happen?

Let’s allow this one sink in for a moment. A million 911s. It’s a staggering achievement for a car that should never have lived as long, much less become the default ‘usable performance car’, given an inherently unbalanced mechanical layout considered retrograde even by mid-Sixties standards. Thought: could it have been a reaction to the original 911’s propensity to Continue reading “Theme: Porsche – Cheaper by the Million”

Theme: Porsche – 928 – Less and More

Over the 928’s production life, various attempts were made at producing additional variants. Few were successful and fewer still went beyond the prototype stage. We look a few notable examples.

When the 928 was being schemed during the early 1970s it appeared as though several US states would outlaw convertibles. This led many European marques to abandon the format entirely, lest they wind up saddled with an expensively developed product they couldn’t sell. This explains the lack of a convertible 928 at launch, if not the fact that Porsche never quite got around to Continue reading “Theme: Porsche – 928 – Less and More”

Panamera Precursor

The Panamera’s missing link.

1989 Porsche 989. Image via krmgk — 1989 Porsche 989. Image: krmgk

Porsche have made several attempts at a four seater over the years, from stretched versions of the eternal 911, to a long-wheelbase 928 created for Ferry Porsche’s 75th birthday, but perhaps Zuffenhausen’s most serious attempt was this.

Porsche were no stranger to crisis – for decades prey to the changing needs, regulations and currency fluctuations of the vital North American market. Having almost gone bust on several occasions since the Seventies, Porsche, under chief engineer, Dr. Ulrich Bez, schemed a larger, more mainstream model to help Continue reading “Panamera Precursor”

History, as Written by Both Winners and Losers

Museums of the Alternative Motoring Universes of Both Porsche and Tatra

A recent visit to Austria was intended to lead to a return by way of Prague and, en route, a further diversion would be made to the Technical Museum Tatra in Kopřivnice. The Tatra company has a long and fine pedigree, and the streamlined 30s Tatras of Hans Ledwinka and his team, as well as their post-War successors, have long fascinated me and, to someone frustrated by cordons, the museum tantalisingly offers that “some of our exhibits and models are available for you to touch”. In the event, time conspired to make the zig-zag trip north impractical, though I strongly hope that I will have another chance.

Continue reading “History, as Written by Both Winners and Losers”