The founder of Porsche was Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) He was a renowned engineer probably most known for the VW Beetle amongst many other pioneering firsts. The very first Porsche was the 356. Production commenced in 1948. The body was designed by employee Erwin Komenda.
These hand built cars under Ferdinand Porsche Jnr's (Ferry) supervision, were first built with aluminium bodies which were lighter than the later production models. With this in mind, the company retained these for competition racing or sold to select drivers. This was fundamental in establishing of the sporting reputation of Porsche as we know it today. With successful racing at the Mille Miglia, 24 Heures de Le Mans & 1000km Buenos Aires to mention but a few. In the following fifteen years, Porsche had built 75,000 of the 356 model using VW components, it's successor the 911 was designed solely by Porsche.
Released in 1963 the 911 became an iconic car and has remained true to its original design for over 40 years.
The 912 was a cheaper option of the 911 and outsold the 911 by a considerable margin. It was released in 1965. It was during this production time that Porsche celebrated its 1,000,000th Porsche (Dec 1966) It was to be the 912 Targa outfitted for the police no less! with the patented Targa cabriolet roof design. Only to be replaced by the 914 in 1970 and then the 924.
1977 witnessed the release of the first front engine Porsche, the 928. Released at the Geneva Motor show sales were slow. This may have been due to the water cooled front engine putting off the Porsche purists. The 928 was followed by the 944 and the 968. These models kept the Porsche designers busy up until 1995 where they had a brief break until production came of the Cayman in 2006. Meanwhile the 911 was still very much in production with the 930, 964, 993, 996 going from strength to strength. Finally we have the 997 in current production.
Then in 1996 came the Boxster. The first model that Porsche designed as a true roadster. 2005 came the facelift inspired by the Carrera GT model and the more powerful engine 987 was released.
The 959 hailed the technological advanced road going sports car ever built, one of the first models to use an all-wheel drive system. With short production run this has helped this model to have kept it's value's high. The Carrera GT with a 5.7 litre engine and 0-60 in 3.5 seconds it's safe to say it's a quick car with a maximum speed of 205mph, it's production was spurred on by the considerable interest in the sales of the Cayenne. A production run of 1500 was agreed but only 1270 made it, due to the change in airbag regulations in the USA in 2006.
During production of the Boxster came a complete shock a 4x4 -the Cayenne, to meet demands of the 4x4 market, this was the first V8 engine model to be built since the 928 ceased in production in 1995. 2009 and we have a four door sports car The Panemera. Unveiled in April 2009 designed to rival the Aston Martin, Mercedes CLS63 AMG and Maserati's Quattroporte it wasn't the first of Porsches attempts to design a 4 door, earlier 911 and 989 models never reached production. We await it's critics.