INTRO:

The Porsche 911 is possibly the greatest and most iconic car of all time, and today I’ll be telling you how it came to be.

(and yes, it is pronounced Porsche-uh)

CHAPTER 1: Wait… we’re talking about the VW beetle?

The Porsche 911 came from the Porsche 356, and the Porsche 356 came from the original Volkswagen Beetle/type 1. So lets start in 1930s Germany with Ferdinand Porsche. When you don’t have an absolute ton of money, being in a dictatorship is hard. So the Nazi government decided to make a contract for a car that was practical, was designed for the new at the time Autobahn network, and most importantly, was cheap. Ferdinand Porsche saw this contract and wanted to build a car for it, but the company he was working for, Mercedes-Benz, wasn’t interested. So he decided to make his own car from scratch with his son, Ferry. making a city car with 1930s technology and on a low budget would prove to have many challenges. For example, a water-cooled engine wouldn’t fit in the small prototype, so a new system using air to cool the engine had to be made. When the car was finished, the handling was. terrible and was mainly compromised by it’s 1930s suspension, so a new type of suspension had to be made. Finally, the prototype was finished, and was ready to be tested, but before the testing could begin, WW2 started, and all the Volkswagen beetle’s production was cancelled to focus on the war. However, most of the Volkswagen beetle’s design was used on the Volkswagen Kubelwagen, one of the most popular cars used in WW2. But  things were about to get even worse for Volkswagen, as Americans bombed their factory from the skies above Germany, and that was the end of that.

Kind of… after WW2, a British general, Ivan Hirst, saw potential in the Beetle (and the Volkswagen bus they were also working on before WW2) and he reverted the car’s production.

CHAPTER 2: Becoming a sports car

After WW2, Ferry Porsche saw potential in the beetle’s design, and he thought it could be a good sports car with some design changes, and it would also be a cheap way to make a sports car, which was a high priority, because Germany was in shambles. So he gave the car a sportier design, changed the carburetors, and made a lot of other changes, and the Porsche 356 was made!   the Porsche 356 was a car that was powerful, (for the time) lightwweight, and good-looking. It competed in many racing events from the 24 hours of Le mans to rallies, and it was very successful and sold well. the long production run of the well-rounded Porsche 356 ended in 1965. One year after the…

CHAPTER 3: The Porsche 911

In 1963, the Porsche 911 was unveiled to the public at the Frankfurt auto show. Its idea was largely based on the 356, just more cylinders, (it used a Boxer-6 engine) more power, and more advanced technology, and once again, it was an instant hit in almost everything! It could conquer races from the grueling Paris-Dakar rally, and did well in lower classes at Le Mans. Overall, the Porsche 911 was a motorsport success, but for a long time, not a sales success. In the 80s, Porsche was doing so poorly that they had to make a new type of 911, the 928 and 944. these cars were front engined, rear-wheel-drive, used V8s and four cylinders, compared to the normal 911’s rear engined, six-cylinder engines because the designers over at Porsche decided that their Porsches weren’t selling because their design based on the Volkswagen Beetle was old and overused, so they completely reversed it. eventually, Porsche realized that a) that was absolutely ridiculous, b) they could just give their Porsches more modern features, like water-cooling,  and c) why not make a cheaper, more fun-focused speedster? Porsche actually did make a cheaper, more fun-focused roadster called the Boxster, and it quickly became one of the best-selling Porsches of all time. Porsche used the profits from the Boxster to make the also great-selling Cayenne SUV.

 

CHAPTER 4: The Future of Porsche

The Porsche 911, Cayenne, and Boxster (and it’s coupe sibling, the Cayman) continue to be best-selling models, in fact, since Porsche is the best-selling car brand in the Volkswagen group, production of Volkswagen cars are stopped to ensure that there are enough parts for the Porsches during a supply-chain issue. Porsche also is currently making the Porsche Taycan, an all-electric sedan to keep up with the Tesla Model S. It is rumored that the next Porsche 911 will be electric, but who knows what the future holds?

THE END