Blast from the Past: the first Porsche

Friday, 8 June 2018

Rare footage of Porsche's first sports car on the move. Clearly before image stabilisation had been invented.

Seventy years ago, on June 8 1948, Ferdinand Anton Ernest Porsche - son of VW Beetle designer Ferdinand Porsche and father of future Porsche 911 designer Ferdinand Alexander 'Butzi' Porsche (not a creative family when it came to names) - first rolled out his vision of what a proper sports car should be, forever shaping not only the future of his company, but also of sports cars to come.

After the war Ferry had been designing and building racing cars for Cisitalia in Gmund, Austria, when he decided to finally realise his dream of designing and building his own sports car, one that would later become known as the Porsche 356.

With a sleek aluminium body designed by Erwin Komenda and running on Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle) mechanicals, the 356/1 was a two-seater open roadster that weighed 585kg and was powered by a mid-mounted, 1311cc air-cooled flat-4 engine that produced 26kW of power, up from the Volkswagen's 18kW.

Designed by Ferry Porsche, the 356/1 was hand built and is still owned by Porsche today.

While the chassis, suspension, engine and transmission were all donated by the Beetle, Porsche modified pretty much everything to one degree or another for use in the 356/1.

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Porsche #1 rolled out the door on the 8th of June 1948.

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The two Ferdinands. One designed the VW Beetle, the other the Porsche 356. A third would design the 911.

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As the fledgling company needed money to build more cars, Porsche sold the prototype to the entrepreneur Rupprecht von Senger for 7,000 Swiss francs on the day it was granted approval for road use.

The 356/1 then changed hands several times and was repaired following a collision, with the front and rear section being adapted in line with the production version of the Porsche 356 at the owner's request.

The prototype was also given a 1.5-litre engine and hydraulic brakes in 1952. Richard von Frankenberg, a racing driver and chief editor of Porsche customer magazine Christophorus, then exchanged 356/1 for a new 356 Speedster in 1958, returning ownership of the car back to Porsche.

This made Porsche one of the very few car companies in the world to still have the first-ever car to bear the brand's name. As an original with its own special story, 356/1 was not returned to its original state but allowed to remain with all its adjustments and modifications intact – in honour of the many different phases it has passed through.

For its 70th birthday, however, Porsche has built an exact replica of the original 356/1 that will tour the world in celebration of the milestone.

While 356/1 was the template for the 356 series production, one major change did take place between the two - the engine was moved from its mid-mounted position to behind the rear axle (just like the Beetle) to reduce production costs and make room for two more seats.