ENSAYO

SAMIR MARCHESE

The German brand, Porsche, would not be the same without all the achievements
of Ferry Porsche, the son of the founder Ferdinand Porsche, who made an
engineering office where his father worked, the sports brand (and others not so
much anymore) that we know today. The story begins when in 1948, Ferry went
looking for the car he had always dreamed of, he couldn't find it and he decided to
build it. Ferry thus shows himself to be a restless, visionary man and an impressive
entrepreneur. Thus, under his direction, the foundations of what would become one
of the most exclusive automobile factories in history were laid. The first sports car
to come out of this still small company is the Porsche 356, followed by the Porsche
911. For five decades, Ferry managed this German factory with great success,
under standards and details of design and technology, applicable today to any of
its models, making them the world's leading manufacturer of sports vehicles. Ferry
Porsche was born in Austria on September 19, 1909, and since he did, his life and
destiny have been marked by the automobile; On the day his father was born,
Ferdinand Porsche was racing at the wheel of his self-built Austro-Daimler racing
car, taking class victory in the race up the climb to Semmering. Growing up in a
wealthy family where everything revolved around the automobile, young Ferry
loved spending time in the factory where his father worked as an engineer, wishing
since he was 10 years old to create his own car. At Christmas 1919, his father
gave him a small two-seater with 6 CV, cooled by air, with which he circulated on
public roads. In April 1933, with a team of twelve specialists, Porsche developed a
new medium saloon with an air-cooled five-cylinder radial engine, developed for
use in trucks. They registered the patent for the torsion bar suspension, becoming
a leading technology in automobile construction internationally for many decades.
At 21, he works independently on his own projects, such as improving the steering
of the 2-litre Wanderer, which became used in Auto-Union racing and Volkswagen.
Ferry Porsche was involved in all the projects and, since 1932, along with his
father, maintaining relations with the company's customers. In 1947, Ferry Porsche
first expressed his idea to build a sports car using Volkswagen components which,
initially codenamed “VW-Sport”, was given the build number 356. The Porsche
356, mounted an engine of four opposed cylinders, a new gearbox, suspension,
springs and direction of Volkswagen origin. Weighing just 585kg, this 35PS mid-
engine roadster had a top speed of 135km/h.