Cars
Porsche’s Technological Innovations Part 3: 1948 – The Strategy for a Grand Project
In 1948, Ferry Porsche launched the brand’s first car, the 356 “Number One,” in Austria. Despite technical innovations, it remained unique. The 356/2 followed in 1949, leading to Porsche’s relocation to Stuttgart.
Refugees in Austria, their homeland, due to the war devastation in Germany, father and son Porsche did not escape, at the end of 1945, the trials for collaboration with Hitler’s Germany for what their renowned engineering studio had designed for the regime. Of the two, the most affected was the “old” Ferdinand, then 70 years old, who was imprisoned in France from December 1945 to 1947, when the Italian Piero Dusio, creator of Cisitalia, paid the ransom for his release. Ferdinand would later be fully exonerated in 1948, but his health suffered from this cruel experience, and he passed away at the beginning of 1951. We will discuss this in the next installment, just a little patience.
Ferry, although also affected, managed to keep the business running, transforming what had been an engineering studio into a company. The name Porsche, in 1948, became a trademark operating on two fronts: capitalizing on the high demand in the agricultural market by producing sophisticated tractors and preparing for the future of the automotive industry with its own new brand.
