The 911 Arrives: How Porsche Created a Dynasty

The Impossible Replacement

By the end of the 1950s, Porsche had become the company Ferry Porsche once imagined, but it had not yet become the company history would celebrate as one of the most renowned automobile manufacturers of all time. It had survived the uncertainty of the immediate postwar years, returned from the improvisational workshops of Gmünd to the industrial orbit of Stuttgart, and built a small but fiercely loyal following around a car that seemed to prove Ferry’s instincts were correct at every turn. Porsche was no longer merely the engineering office founded by Ferdinand Porsche in 1931. It was now a manufacturer, a racing presence, an export success, and a name that meant something increasingly specific to the people who understood what made a lightweight sports car different from an ordinary automobile.

The 356 had done everything asked of it and far more than anyone inside the small postwar firm could have reasonably expected. It had carried the Porsche name out of Gmünd, returned it to Stuttgart, introduced it to America, won at Le Mans, climbed mountains, crossed Mexico, fought larger cars on European circuits, and persuaded a growing international audience that a small, air-cooled, rear-engine German sports car could possess a personality unlike anything else on the road. It had transformed Porsche from an engineering consultancy into a manufacturer. It had given the company a product, a following, a racing identity, and a future.