Porsche
Porsche AG, is a German automobile manufacturer specializing
in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans. Porsche AG is headquartered
in Stuttgart, and is owned by Volkswagen AG, which is itself majority-owned by
Porsche Automobil Holding SE. Porsche's current lineup includes the 718
Boxster/Cayman, 911, Panamera, Macan and Cayenne.
Ferdinand Porsche founded the company called "Dr. Ing.
h. c. F. Porsche GmbH" in 1931, with main offices at Kronenstraße 24 in
the centre of Stuttgart. Initially, the company offered motor vehicle development
work and consulting, but did not build any cars under its own name. One of the
first assignments the new company received was from the German government to
design a car for the people, that is a "Volkswagen". This resulted in
the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the most successful car designs of all time. The
Porsche 64 was developed in 1939 using many components from the Beetle
Our company offers the Porsche compliance certificate for
this vehicle through our website.
During World War II, Volkswagen production turned to the
military version of the Volkswagen Beetle, the Kübelwagen, 52,000 produced, and
Schwimmwagen, 15,584 produced. Porsche produced several designs for heavy tanks
during the war, losing out to Henschel & Son in both contracts that
ultimately led to the Tiger I and the Tiger II. However, not all this work was
wasted, as the chassis Porsche designed for the Tiger I was used as the base
for the Elefant tank destroyer. Porsche also developed the Maus super-heavy
tank in the closing stages of the war, producing two prototypes.
At the end of World War II in 1945, the Volkswagen factory
at KdF-Stadt fell to the British. Ferdinand lost his position as Chairman of
the Board of Management of Volkswagen, and Ivan Hirst, a British Army Major,
was put in charge of the factory. (In Wolfsburg, the Volkswagen company
magazine dubbed him "The British Major who saved Volkswagen".) On 15
December of that year, Ferdinand was arrested for war crimes, but not tried.
During his 20-month imprisonment, Ferdinand Porsche's son, Ferry Porsche,
decided to build his own car, because he could not find an existing one that he
wanted to buy. He also had to steer the company through some of its most
difficult days until his father's release in August 1947. The first models of
what was to become the 356 were built in a small sawmill in Gmünd, Austria. The
prototype car was shown to German auto dealers, and when pre-orders reached a
set threshold, production (with aluminium body) was begun by Porsche
Konstruktionen GesmbH founded by Ferry and Louise. Many regard the 356 as the
first Porsche simply because it was the first model sold by the fledgling
company. After the production of 356 was taken over by the father's Dr. Ing.
h.c. F. Porsche GmbH in Stuttgart in 1950, Porsche commissioned a
Zuffenhausen-based company, Reutter Karosserie, which had previously
collaborated with the firm on Volkswagen Beetle prototypes, to produce the
356's steel body. In 1952, Porsche constructed an assembly plant (Werk 2)
across the street from Reutter Karosserie; the main road in front of Werk 1,
the oldest Porsche building, is now known as Porschestrasse. The 356 was road
certified in 1948.
Porsche's company logo was based on the coat of arms of the
Free People's State of Württemberg of former Weimar Germany, which had
Stuttgart as its capital. (The same arms were used by Württemberg-Hohenzollern
from 1945-1952, while Stuttgart during these years was the capital of adjacent
Württemberg-Baden.) The arms of Stuttgart was placed in the middle as an
inescutcheon, since the cars were made in Stuttgart. The heraldic symbols were
combined with the texts "Porsche" and "Stuttgart", which
shows that it is not a coat of arms since heraldic achievements never spell out
the name of the armiger nor the armigers home town in the shield.
Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern became part of the present land
of Baden-Württemberg in 1952 after the political consolidation of West Germany
in 1949, and the old design of the arms of Württemberg now only lives on in the
Porsche logo. On 30 January 1951, not long before the creation of
Baden-Württemberg, Ferdinand Porsche died from complications following a
stroke.
The COC Porsche is
available for all Porsche built by the European market.
In post-war Germany, parts were generally in short supply,
so the 356 automobile used components from the Volkswagen Beetle, including the
engine case from its internal combustion engine, transmission, and several
parts used in the suspension. The 356, however, had several evolutionary
stages, A, B, and C, while in production, and most Volkswagen-sourced parts
were replaced by Porsche-made parts. Beginning in 1954 the 356s engines started
utilizing engine cases designed specifically for the 356. The sleek bodywork
was designed by Erwin Komenda, who also had designed the body of the Beetle.
Porsche's signature designs have, from the beginning, featured air-cooled
rear-engine configurations (like the Beetle), rare for other car manufacturers,
but producing automobiles that are very well balanced.
In 1964, after a fair amount of success in motor-racing with
various models including the 550 Spyder, and with the 356 needing a major
re-design, the company launched the Porsche 911: another air-cooled, rear-engined
sports car, this time with a six-cylinder "boxer" engine. The team to
lay out the body shell design was led by Ferry Porsche's eldest son, Ferdinand
Alexander Porsche (F. A.). The design phase for the 911 caused internal
problems with Erwin Komenda, who led the body design department until then. F.
A. Porsche complained Komenda made unauthorized changes to the design. Company
leader Ferry Porsche took his son's drawings to neighbouring chassis
manufacturer Reuter. Reuter's workshop was later acquired by Porsche (so-called
Werk 2). Afterward Reuter became a seat manufacturer, today known as
Keiper-Recaro.
What do i need to get my COC Porsche? Information available
on our website.
The headquarters and main factory
are located in Zuffenhausen, a district in Stuttgart, but the Cayenne and
Panamera models are manufactured in Leipzig, Germany, and parts for the SUV are
also assembled in the Volkswagen Touareg factory in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Boxster and Cayman production was outsourced to Valmet Automotive in Finland
from 1997 to 2011, and in 2012 production moved to Germany.
Of the 246,375 cars produced in
the 2017 financial year, 32,197 were 911 models, 25,114 were Boxster and Cayman
cars, 63,913 were Cayennes, 27,942 were Panameras and 97,202 were Macans.
The current Porsche model range
includes sports cars from the Boxster roadster to their most famous product,
the 911. The Cayman is a coupé otherwise similar to the Boxster. The Cayenne is
Porsche's mid-size luxury sport utility vehicle (SUV). A high performance
luxury saloon/sedan, the Panamera, was launched in 2009.