Picture of the month - June 2023 - Porsche No.1
75 years ago, Ferdinand Porsche launched the "No. 1” out, the first sports car to bear his name
Over the decades I've photographed pretty much all Porsche models - including many prototypes and "concept cars".
The famous “Number 1” has a very special place in my archive – the first vehicle to bear the Porsche name.
Ferdinand Porsche had set up his own engineering office in 1930; he developed the Volkswagen (which later became known as the "Beetle") and from 1938 was also the general manager of the Volkswagen factory.
At that time he was already carrying around the idea of a sports car, a sportier version of the Volkswagen. For a race that was supposed to take place in 1939 but never took place, he had already developed a test car, the so-called "Berlin-Rome car".
Towards the end of the Second World War, Ferdinand Porsche withdrew to southern Austria, to Carinthia.
There the engineers worked in a camouflaged building in Gmünd on war-spared jeeps - and finally, after the end of the war, built the sports car "No. 1" as the first vehicle of the 356 series, under its own name.
Number 1 was registered on June 8, 1948.
Ferdinand Porsche, his son Ferry, chief developer Karl Rabe and designer Erwin Komenda assembled the prototype from a sporty tubular steel frame with a hand-made aluminum body, with the technology essentially coming from the VW Beetle.
585 kilograms light.
3.86 meters long.
35 PS stark.
130 kilometers per hour fast.
The ancestor of all later Porsche sports cars.
Porsche was enthusiastic and repeatedly drove the car to the Katschberg, just a few kilometers away, to test it – so often that the rear wheel suspension broke at some point.
In the same year that it was registered, Porsche sold the roadster to the Swiss importer of the Volkswagen; he then supported the production of the first wagons with material and raw materials.
Later, the "number 1" vagrant through half of Europe until it finally found its way back to Porsche and was extensively restored.
For Porsche's 70th anniversary, I had the original model from 1948 in my studio with the paint still wet.
And now, for the 75th anniversary of the "number 1", you can order the fantastically beautiful vehicle as a picture of the month.
in a wooden frame, painted black