porsche TURNS 50
“In the beginning I looked around but couldn’t find the car I dreamt of, so I decided to build it myself.” These were the words of the creator of the 356 and 911, Ferry Porsche
Yet the story of Porsche and the 911 actually starts earlier than the 356. In 1939, three examples of the type 64, based on the KDF-Wagen (which became the Beetle post-war) were built for the proposed race from Berlin to Rome, which never happened. While not wearing the Porsche badge, which did not come into being, it is this road-racer which really is the beginning of the whole story.
The 911 was a response to calls for a faster, more refined car to replace the 356, which had been in production since 1948 and although (like it’s replacement) it had been continually evolving, time had overtaken it and the world was ready for a new type of practical sports car.
The early development of the new car had enough hiccups that it is lucky it made it into production at all. When Ferry Porsche drove the prototype 901 (the 911 label came later after a French manufacturer reminded them that three digit model numbers with a central 0 were their registered property) his words were not encouraging – “We can forget this car”.
Body design was equally problematic with several designs (and designers) being discarded before Fredinand “Ferry” Porsche’s son Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche, along with Porsche Body department chief Erwin Komenda, finally came up with the shape, which 50 years on still looks fresh. 356 bodies were built by Reutter in Stuttgart but demand for the 911 was too great for them to keep up with. In 1964, Porsche bought the factory and Reutter Carosserie-Werke became RECARO, supplying seats as OEM parts to Porsche and other high-performance manufacturers.
The 911 kept on getting better-it survived an internal plot to euthanize it in the late 1970s and today it still a fond favourite in posters on schoolboys’ bedroom walls. Over the next few pages we look at specific cars and let some owners tell the story of their own ‘road to Porsche ownership’.
I have never driven a Porsche I haven’t liked. Every time I drive a performance car it is a Porsche I use as yardstick and only once have I ever got out of a supercar and thought “this is better than a Porsche”. That was a McLarenMercecdes SLR so I think even most Porsche fanatics will forgive that.