It can be said that the rear-engined Porsche 356 was fast, aerodynamic and reliable and pointed the way to the future for Porsche. Yet all in all it was a pre-war auto sports car design with VW Volkswagen “Beetle” mechanical parts.

When Professor Ferdinand Porsche was released in August 1947 from the French prison where he had been interned after the war, he returned to his family home in Gmund Austria. He found that his son Ferry and his old design associates Karl Rabe and Erwin Komenda were installed in a small design office and workshop in the outbuildings of the family home.
They had begun by designing and building agricultural machinery, including a new design of tractor, as motor cars were out of the question in the immediate post-war days, and their workshop also carried out repairs on war-time Volkswagen cars, especially the cross-country vehicle which Austrian farmers were finding most useful.

By 1947 Ferry Porsche and his two experienced designers had begun work on a car to carry the Porsche name based on VW components owing to a one-off streamlined coupe that Porsche had built in 1939 on a Volkswagen base. That coupe had been built expressly to take part in the Berlin-Rome race, but unfortunately and fortuitously the war had put a short end to that venture. The prototype Porsche built at Gmund was an open two-seater sports car for the simple reason that Porsche’s facilities were to say the least “limited”. Who could have possibly dreamed and imagined that the Porsche works and enterprise could have grown into such a large, prestigious and internationally respected auto maker out of such humble beginnings? Yet at that point early in time for Porsche they lacked the resources to construct even a simple coupe. Yet this was the prototype, and when Professor Porsche returned home he was more than well pleased to see the family name on this sleek little sports car.

Before the war the Porsche design office and work shop had been in Stuttgart, and it was imperative that they return there so that work would begin on producing Porsche auto products yet again. Unfortunately at that time, the American military were in possession of the Stuttgart premises and it ultimately took a long period of time to repossess them (not until 1950 in fact). While negotiations were fully in progress a batch of 50 cars were built at Gnund, each one hand-made with a hand-beaten aluminum coupe body. When series production of the little coupes was instituted , the Reutter body plant next door to the Porsche premises was given the contract to produce the chassis body unit in steel, while Porsche looked after the mechanical components, most of which were of Volkswagen origin. Thus did the Porsche 356 go into production, in Zuffenhausen in North West Stuttgart.

The Porsche rear engine 356 model may well have been basically a pre-war design of sports car, built essentially with off the shelf essentially economy mass market VW Volkswagen early beetle parts , yet no doubt about it – the car was fast , aerodynamic sleek and reliable. Yet this vehicle on simplest origins, in odd circumstances pointed the very way for the Porsche Automobil Holding SE as a major international auto sports car maker of the greatest renown. Still the little car that started it all was essentially a pre-war sports car design with Volkswagen Beetle mechanical parts.

Author Bio: Wayne I. Haddad
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Category: Automotive
Keywords: Porsche VW history, Porsche VW history parts,Porsche used parts,Porche 356 VW Beetle