Luxury Incarnate-Porsche

Porsche AG, simply known as Porsche, is a German-based auto manufacturer. Founded by Ferdinand Porsche back in 1931, the Porsche is well-known as a luxury car, it has even won awards for being such from the Luxury Institute in New York.

Early Models

The Porsche first came out with the Porsche 64. This model shared many of the same parts as the Volkswagen Beetle which Ferdinand Porsche was ordered to design by Adolf Hitler himself as an affordable people's car. Due to the war, the Porsche 64 never made it to the marketplace and once the fighting was over, it was replaced with the slightly more modern 356.

The Porsche 356 is considered to technically be the first Porsche vehicles since the 64 model was never actually sold. This model also used parts of the Beetle, including the engine, suspension and even the gearbox, although as the 356 evolved (there were three versions, A, B, and C), it began to use exclusively Porsche components until the last model, the 356C, was completely powered by Porsche-designed engine parts.

The Porsche 550 Spyder came out as a racing car and had great success on the race track, along with several other models that were designed specifically for speed.

In 1963, the Porsche 911 was introduced and quickly became arguably the most famous Porsche automobile. This vehicle was designed by Ferdinand's grandson, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, with input from Erwin Komanda, the current production leader at the time. The two supposedly fought over the design because Komanda made unauthorized changes. This fight led to Ferry Porsche taking his son's drawings of the body shell to another company to have it made.

This second company was Reuter, who was later taken over by Porsche and turned into a seat producer called Reiper-Recaro.

Originally, the Porsche 911 was called the 901, but Peugot already had a claim on all three numeral numbers with "0" in the middle, so Porsche changed the name to 911. This changed the order of the cars as well, since they had always named them in sequence. The 911 is still on the market today, although drastically different than the original vehicle.

Later Models

In 1969, Porsche and Volkswagen teamed up to produce the VW-Porsche cars, the 914-6 which featured a Porsche engine, and the 914 which was built with a VW engine.

The two companies hooked up again to create the Porsche 912E and the 924 in 1976. Both these cars were built in the Audi factory in Neckarsulm and utilized a large amount of Audi parts, as was the Porsche 944. Audi is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen, as is Skoda. The Skoda factory was used in 2002 to produce the new Porsche Cayenne.

Current Models

Current Porsche models include the redesigned Porsche 911, the ever-popular Cayenne and

Business Changes

In 1972, the company was turned over to board members that were not part of the Porsche family. The reason for this drastic change was that the brother and sister who owned the company at the time felt their children were not able to team up well enough to run the company. So an outside group was brought in to form the executive board, while Porsche family members were simply on the supervisory board.

Volkswagen and Porsche

These two companies, brought together by their mutual founder, have had a long and useful history together. Teaming up various times to bring out new cars with a mix of parts and sharing components throughout the years, it was speculated in the early 2000´s that Porsche would be taking over Volkswagen.

The opposite was true. Instead, Porsche invested in its sister company, ending up with an 18.65% stake in Volkswagen. This move also saved the smaller company from being taken over by other companies such as BMW or DaimlerChrysler, both of whom were rumored to be interested.

Racing

Porsche is famous for its participation on the racetrack. Starting out with lightweight competitors, the company quickly moved on to corporate sponsored vehicles and went from a smaller 2.0 L engine all the way up to the 5.0 L. Of the various models built for racing, the Porsche 917 is considered to be one of the best.

The 917 was the first Porsche to win the Le Mans and continued on to conquer all forms of Can-Am racing. Other models were produced, but none came as close to being idolized as the 917.