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http://autos.yahoo...-76-194330668.html
For a rich kid kicked out of design school, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche created one of the greatest legacies in automotive design with the Porsche 911 — one that will survive far beyond Porsche's death today at the age of 76.
The son of company founder Ferry Porsche, F.A. or "Butzi" as he was known spent most of his career at his eponymous firm Porsche Design, where he oversaw the styling of thousands of products from watches to yachts, many with the tag "Designed by F.A. Porsche."
But it's the 911's emergence in 1964, when Butzi Porsche was just 25 years old, that made him a historic figure. While his father and grandfather had been famous German engineers — the original Ferdinand Porsche engineered the first Volkswagen Beetle — F.A. Porsche chose to study design. A year after enrolling in a prestigious school, Porsche was in his own words "kicked out," and took at job at his father's fledging car business in 1957.
At the time, Ferry Porsche had created the successful Porsche 356, but needed a follow-up model. He set the car's basic layout —a rear engine, a short wheelbase for agile handing — but pushed the designers and engineers to fashion a more sporting look than the men who built the Beetle had produced so far.
Prowling the auto shows of Europe, F.A. Porsche formed an idea of how the car should look as a smooth, curving fastback, rejecting the flat angles popular in American cars of the era. "I just think you start creating edges when the body of a car is bad…they are lines that support something that ties the designer down," Porsche would say years later.
The new car's design spurred a dispute with the older designers in Ferry Porsche's shop, to such a degree Ferry went around them, taking his son's blueprints to the body fabricator. The first production-ready model, called the 901, appeared at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September 1964, and after Peugeot objected to the name, Porsche changed it to 911. Despite the timelessness of the 911's shape, F.A. Porsche believed his greatest design came a few years later, with the Porsche 904 race car.
When the company went public in 1971, the Porsche family withdrew from management roles — although F.A. Porsche would remain a presence on the company's board and in its design studios. "He established a design culture in our company that has shaped our sports cars to this very day," said Matthias Müller, President and Chief Executive Officer of Porsche AG. "His philosophy of good design is a legacy to us that we will honor for all time."
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911 is was and always will be a classic.
thank you, mr. porsche.
[last edit 4/5/2012 10:32 PM by Samurai - edited 1 times]
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Dislike 
hi i like cars |
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Posted by bandi
Dislike
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which part exactly?
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One of my most respected automotive figures is gone.
hi i like cars |
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Posted by bandi
One of my most respected automotive figures is gone.
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you have to admit that the 911 is probably one of the most timeless and iconic cars ever to be built.
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Stuttgart. Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, is mourning
Professor Ferdinand Alexander Porsche
http://www.porsche...e&id=2012-04-05-03
The 911 is an icon and a monument to design and engineering brilliance.
[last edit 4/6/2012 10:47 PM by CaptOrbit - edited 1 times]
The personal responsibility train left the station years ago, and you gave it the finger as you watched it leave. |
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Posted by Samurai
you have to admit that the 911 is probably one of the most timeless and iconic cars ever to be built.
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Definitely. I fell in love at an early age and WILL own one some day.
An air cooled flat six (I'm partial to the 2.7) is the best sound in the world.
[last edit 4/7/2012 12:37 AM by bandi - edited 1 times]
hi i like cars |
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i bought the movie "No Man's Land" because of the Porsche's featured... 
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What always amazed me was that Ferdinand Porsche apparently liked the "American sealed beam headlamp", when all of Europe hated them...
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Posted by Samurai
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I bet that model is worth a few thousand.
RIP Mr. Porsche.
"Deep in the human psyche there lies the need to believe in something fantastic, something powerful, something unknown."
"Touch what you cannot solve, and return to me. I'll give you hints, and I'll give you three..." Zork Nemesis "I eat asbestos and piss PCBs." |
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Early long hood Targa with the soft plastic rear window? Just a few 
One just sold on eBay needing a fair bit of work (engine AND body) for $50k.
hi i like cars |
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this please
993 is beautiful perfection
996 is whack, you can get them for 20k...
997 is beaut
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which 911 variant had the pop-up headlights?
didn't care for that one... made it look cheap to me.
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930 slant nose
hi i like cars |
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Posted by bandi
930 slant nose
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thank you.
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And I'll take this one please...
hi i like cars |
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in red or lime green please!
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I was always happy with a 2.7S myself... Roof out, smell the wet grass, listening to that flat-6 thrum, and bubble on the overrun. The way a 911 squirms around, giving you the feeling of the road is amazing.
A great machine indeed, one I consider lucky to have been able to own and drive for 15 years, and to have built and driven many more.
The Targa was a stock, stud-replaced, 2.7S, with a few tweaks like Carrera exhaust and stuff like that (I've still got those Wayfarer too). The long-hood is a SWB 912 with a 2.2 installed, body number 636 it was a three-gauge dash, and went like stink...
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i have never had the opportunity to drive one.
by the way, what the hell do you do for a living, 'Neko?
i'm getting this CIA/MI5 James Bond vibe off you. 
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Ethics
