Name: The Story of Porsche: From WW2 to the 911
Uploaded: 2017-08-30T05:25:57.000Z
Duration: 9 min 1 s
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The second conditional

If you had to pick one car that captures the
power, beauty and excitement people feel about

sports cars, you would find no better candidate
than the Porsche 911.

Adverbs of degree

What’s even more impressive is that this
has been true for over 50 years.

That’s why today, we’ll be exploring the
history of one of Germany’s most renowned

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Our story begins in 1875 in Maffersdorf, a
small town in the Austrian Empire that is

That was the birthplace of Ferdinand Porsche,
a quiet yet ambitious boy with a gift for

As a teenager he would spend most of his days
in his father’s repair shop, learning the

ins and outs of vehicle mechanics, while attending
university at night.

His persistence landed him several engineering
jobs at local companies, and by the time he

was 23 he had designed his first automobile,
the Porsche P1.

It was basically a carriage that ran on electric
motors.

It was supposed to break speed records, but
the 2 tons of lead-acid batteries it had kinda

Ferdinand would later improve it with a combustion
engine, creating the first ever hybrid car,

It could reach 37 mph and it broke the Austrian
speed record as well as winning various races.

Porsche was eventually drafted into the army,
where he served as a chauffeur for none other

Luckily, he was back to designing cars long
before that other chauffeur got the Archduke

and his wife killed, kicking off the First
World War.

In the early 1920s Porsche moved to Stuttgart,
where he was hired by Daimler as technical

There he designed the Mercedes-Benz SSK, arguably
the greatest race car of its era, with an

By 1931 Porsche had saved up enough money
to start a business of his own.

He was already one of the most famous engineers
in Germany, yet despite that his business

You see, the German economy was still in shambles
in 1933 and very few people could afford cars.

He had become the Chancellor of Germany on
January 30 of that year and just a few days

later at the Berlin Auto Show, he announced
the beginning of a new era for automobiles.

He wanted every German citizen to have a car
that could fit a family of five, start in

Essentially, what he wanted was а people’s
car; a Volkswagen, if you will.

Of course, the project was extremely ambitious,
which is why Hitler recruited the best engineers

He began working on what would eventually
become the Beetle in 1934, later becoming

a member of the Nazi Party and even the SS.

In 1938 Hitler unveiled a state-owned factory
for Porsche’s car, which would be built

by the newly-established Volkswagen company.

During World War 2, Porsche was recruited
for military projects like the Elefant heavy

Because of that, and his SS membership, Porsche
was arrested and imprisoned for war crimes

He was released a few years later, but by
that point his son, Ferry Porsche, had assumed

He wanted to build cars with the Porsche name
on them and thus in 1948, he created the Porsche

Its popularity didn’t really take off until
it won the 1951 Le Mans race, after which

By 1965, when production finally ended, over
76,000 cars had been produced.

Well in 1963, another model started rolling
off the factory floor, the Porsche 911.

It was a rear-engine car that was air cooled,
with two small back seats and a trunk that

Critics called it a better, more civilized
356, and they were right: the 911 became a

hit sensation that built upon its predecessor’s
success.

It became Porsche’s best-seller despite
its price tag of $6,000, which was more than

most people’s annual salary at the time.

By the 1970s, Porsche were selling over 20,000
911s every year, and if you count all of its

variations, the model is arguably the most
successful competition car in history.

Over the years it has won nearly everything:
the Monte Carlo rally, the Paris-Dakar, the

Targa Florio and numerous other rally and
GT championships.

It’s easy to see why: some estimates say
that two thirds of all Porsches ever made

are still on the road, which is part of the
reason why the Porsche brand has endured for

Their brand has been built on sports cars,
which is why people lost their minds when

The Cayenne was a huge departure from anything
they’d ever done before; in fact, it was

Fans of the brand were shocked and thought
it would devalue Porsche’s image, but actually

The car was an excellent performer, and quickly
rose to prominence.

Today, the Cayenne and Porsche’s new SUV,
the Macan, make up over 70% of the company’s

But let’s talk about the company’s ownership.

You probably know that Porsche is owned by
Volkswagen, but it’s actually way more complicated.

So complicated, that we’ll be making a separated
video just for that story.

But here’s the short version:
In the decades after World War 2, Volkswagen

became very successful, vastly overshadowing
Porsche and selling 60 times as many cars.

One day in 2005, however, these two Porsche
executives decided for some reason that they

Of course, Volkswagen was way bigger than
Porsche could possibly afford, but they figured

out an ingenious and barely legal way around
that.

Their first move was to buy call options on
Volkswagen stock.

Now if you’re not familiar with how call
options work, they basically earn money as

So, once the executives had enough options,
they started buying the stock itself, lifting

its price, earning money from the options,
and using that money to buy even more stock.

They continued their scheme for three years
and by October 2008 Porsche controlled 74.1%

Now, by German law in order to access Volkswagen’s
billions of cash reserves, Porsche needed

But Porsche had ran out of cash long ago and
had purchased thousands of shares by borrowing

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The Story of Porsche: From WW2 to the 911

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