Beast legends ep. 3: porsche 356
Everything Porsche have done and continue doing to this day, defies logic in a way and somehow it's still brilliant.
Among all beasts there is one who seems to have found the fountain of youth. It has not aged a day although many decades have passed. The beasts name is Porsche and it all started with the 356. What followed after is car-legend.
In 1931 Dr. Ferdinand Porsche opened shop in Stuttgart. His company developed the famous VW Beetle and, during WW II, several military machines as well. Due to unfortunate circumstances that have nothing to do with our story, Dr. Porsche went to jail for 20 months. During the incarceration his son, Ferdinand "Ferry" Porsche decided to build his own car. And so Porsche was born and the 356 was to be their first model.
Between 1945 and 1947, Ferdinand Porsche Jr. and his sister Louis founded a new company with headquarters in an old sawmill in Gmund, Austria. In a time when every beast builder was pushing for mass production and industrialization, Porsche decided to go with a different approach. The company had insane quality checks, and their creations involved a lot of craftsmanship. Despite the very different approach orders went thru the roof.
Just to clarify how this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how backwards Porsche has always done things, we need to take a look at other aspects as well. First of all the engine is in the back, and it's still brilliant. They decided to stick with one model and improve it until it hits perfection, and it's still brilliant. Everything Porsche have done and continue doing to this day, defies logic in a way and somehow it's still brilliant.
Getting back to our legend, when developing the VW Beetle, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche pushed the idea of a race-car and it managed to gain some traction due to the propaganda that was involved with racing at the time and so Germany agreed to let him use VW parts to build a race-car. You could say the Type 64, built for the Berlin-Rome race by Dr. Ferdinand was the first actual Porsche, but it didn't go into production, only 3 were ever made, and they didn't even attend the race they were built for.
Nonetheless the Type 64 served as a prototype, in a way, for the legend that would soon become the 356. Sticking with the 'one model' philosophy Porsche decided to constantly improve the 356 with accent on performance. The Porsche 356 was built in different series: A, B and C. The first series used the same rear-mounted, air-cooled, four-cylinder engine as the VW Beetle with improved cylinder heads, camshaft, crankshaft, intake and exhaust manifolds and used dual carburetors to double the Beetle's power.
Latter series Porsche 356's started having their own engine-pans, and other custom designed parts. Weighing south of a tone and with the back-mounted engine the car had a very light front-end which led to sensational handling. (Told you the other-way-around works!) Porsche soon became famous for it and it's reliability, it's curvee looks also helping in the popularity department.
The Porsche 356 revolutionized what it meant to own a sports-car. It also managed to be born on 8th of July 1948 which luckily for us implies we were blessed by the V8 gods to have had such a machine within our life-times. Thank Almighty V8!
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