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Famous Designers.

Ferdnand Porsche 1875-1952

His economy and light car designs.

Although he was actively involved in motorcar design for over fifty years, only one of his lightcar designs reached series production. He was fortunate to see many of his heavy luxury, sports and racing cars designs reached production. But getting a light car produced, sporting or economy was a struggle. While at Austro-Daimler in the early nineteen twenties, he designed an 1100cc sports car. Hoping that it would form the basis of a wider range of cars, but he was not supported by board of directors of Austro-Daimler. A handful of cars were produced and given the name "Sascha", in honour of Count Shascha Kolowrat who underwrote the venture. The "Sascha's", proved very successful in motor sports events throughout Europe.
Austro-Daimler Sascha
I have found a reference to a one-litre small car that Porsche designed while he was at Daimler-Benz, in a book by Richard von Frankenberg. This was in 1928, and thirty test samples were constructed but the project wasn't taken any further and none have survived.
By 1931 Ferdinand Porsche had set up his own design bureau in Stuttgart, Germany and began to create designs for the German motor industry.  The Porsche design bureau was staffed by engineers that Porsche had gathered together  over a period of thirty years. They were Karl Rabe his chief engineer, Erwin Komenda in charge of body designer, Kales in charge of engine design, Mickl, he was responsible for aerodynamics and Hruska. His son Ferry Porsche was also part of the team and would take over from his father after the Second World War.
One project that Porsche and his team started to work on was for a small economy car, but unlike the other work they had it had not been commissioned but was something Porsche wanted to do. It was numbered type 12. This was in September 1931. The design that unfolded had features that would become familiar in later years, a backbone frame, a rear engine, all independent suspension and a beetle shaped body. The engine design was unconventional for a car, a three cylinder air-cooled radial. This arrangement was often used in light aircraft.
In 1932 the German motorcycle manufacturer Zundapp made enquires about a small car design that they wished to put in production. The type 12 was revised to meet Zundapp's requirements. A five cylinder water-cooled engine replaced the three cylinder unit. Prototypes of the car that was to be called the "Zundapp Volksauto", were produced and road tested, but the car didn't go into series production due to Zundapp's inability to finance the venture.
In 1933 Porsche was approached NSU by another German motorcycle manufacturer, for a small car design. This time is was for a slightly larger car. The design, Porsche type number 32, that was finalized utilized a flat four cylinder air-cooled engine of 1400cc. Torsion bar springs were used for the trailing arm front and swing axle rear suspension. Three prototypes were made, and had been tested, before NSU had to abandon the idea due to contract agreements made previously with Fiat, not to re-enter car manufacturer.
Porsche type 32
The idea of creating a small car of advanced design for the people of Germany seem to be doomed, until Porsche submitted a proposal on the development of such a car to the Transport department of the German government. This was in January 1934. He managed to get the chancellor a certain Herr Hitler, interested in the idea. This led to a lot of hard work by the Porsche bureau, before the car then called the "KdF Wagen", and known to us as the Volkswagen was a reality. The car was similar to the "NSU Volksauto",  but slightly smaller and with a 985cc engine, was developed and ready for production by 1938. Production started at the purpose built factory at Wolfsburg in 1939. But only two hundred and ten examples were made before the factory went over to war production.  Over twenty one million Volkswagen Beetles have been produced since 1945. This alone proves the brilliance of Ferdinand Porsche and his team.
 It was decided to develop a sports version of it to be run in a race from Berlin to Rome and back to take place in 1939. Three cars were built, named the Volkswagen type 64, based on the Volkswagen saloon platform chassis with an aerodynamic sports coupe body designed by Erwin Komenda of the Porsche design office. The tuned Volkswagen engine produced 40bhp and that was sufficient to give the car a maximum speed of 91mph, which would have been used a great deal in the race as it. was to be run the Autobahn recently built in Germany. The Volkswagen engine was ideal for this as it was designed to run for long periods on the autobahn a task it fulfilled with distinction in Volkswagens and the early Porsche coupes after the war. The race was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Second World War, but Professor Porsche drove one of the cars throughout the war and that car survived to take part in post war motor sport in the hands of an Austrian driver. The next time the Porsche design office worked on a sport car it was a evolution of the type 64 but carried the Porsche name.
Volkswagen type 64
Ferry Porsche with the Porsche design team led by Karl Rabe, designed and built the first car  to bare the Porsche name, while resident in the small Austrian town of Gmund where they had been evacuated at the end of the second world war. The first prototype was completed in March 1948, and was a mid engined roadster using Volkswagen components mounted in a space frame chassis. The second prototype used a purpose built platform chassis, the engine again a 1131cc Volkswagen unit tuned to produce 40 bhp  was mounted  in the usual Porsche position and again using all Volkswagen components. With a coupe body designed by Erwin Komenda, the 356 was born. Between 46 and 51 of the 356 were made at Gmunde, all with aluminium bodies.
Porsche 356
In 1950 production of the Porsche 356 was transferred to Stuttgart, Germany, their pre-war base. The cars were made in the Reutter factory were the pressed steel bodies used from now on, were also made. After the initial revolutionary design, The story of the Porsche 356 is one of evolution  Between 1950 and 1955, over seven thousand of all types of this original 356 was made, the engine size steadily increasing from 1086cc, to 1488cc and the power output rising to 115bhp in the Carrera 1600GT Coupe of 1959. During this time the car evolved steadily with improvements in all it’s components, the Volkswagen content being reduced as Porsche designed items became available. In 1955 the 356 evolved into the 356A and that in turn evolved into 356B in 1959 as the design was refined and improved, by then the car had long been pure Porsche.
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