The short version of a long story.
The engineer
Ferdinand Porsche was born in 1875 in Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He never finished a formal engineering degree. He started at an electrical firm at fifteen and was running his own department by twenty. By thirty he was the chief designer at Austro-Daimler. By fifty he had designed cars for Daimler-Benz, Auto Union, and the German racing program.
He started his own design consultancy in Stuttgart in 1931. The company was called Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH — a consultancy, not a manufacturer. Clients paid for engineering work. The 1930s commissions included the original Volkswagen Beetle, designed under contract for the Reich. That work would later become controversial. Ferdinand spent twenty months in French custody after the war for his involvement in wartime production.
The 356, in Gmünd
With Ferdinand still imprisoned in France, his son Ferry Porsche kept the company alive in a small sawmill in Gmünd, Austria. In 1948, with a team of fewer than ten people, Ferry built the first car to carry the Porsche name on its rear deck: the 356.
The 356 was an air-cooled, rear-engine coupe — a sports car built on Volkswagen mechanicals because that was what was available. Ferry's instinct was right. The little aluminum-bodied car was beautiful, light, and fast for its time. The company produced 50 of them in Austria before moving production to Stuttgart in 1950. The 356 stayed in production until 1965.
The 911, in 1963
The 911 was designed by Ferry's son, Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche III. It debuted at the 1963 Frankfurt motor show under the designation 901. Peugeot complained — they claimed three-digit numbers with a zero in the middle as their trademark in France. The car shipped as the 911 in September 1964.
The 911 has been continuously produced ever since. Through the long-hood era (1964 to 1973), the impact-bumper G-body (1974 to 1989), the smooth-bumper 964 (1989 to 1994), the wide-bodied 993 (1994 to 1998), and into the water-cooled era that started with the 996 in 1998 — a single nameplate for sixty-plus years.
The family
Porsche AG has always been a family business. The Porsche-Piëch family — Ferdinand's descendants and the descendants of his daughter Louise, who married Anton Piëch — holds control of the company through a holding company called Porsche Automobil Holding SE. That holding company in turn owns a controlling stake in Volkswagen Group. Porsche AG and Volkswagen AG are intertwined: Volkswagen Group owns Porsche AG, but the same family controls both.
Porsche AG went public in 2022 on the Frankfurt exchange. It was the largest German IPO since 1996. Most of the stock remained with the family and with Volkswagen.
What this catalog is not
F6 Supply Co. is not affiliated with Porsche AG. We are independent. We make accessories that reference air-cooled chassis numbers — 911, 912, 930, 964, 993, and the 1973 RS — using the language enthusiasts have used for fifty years. The Porsche name, crest, and model trademarks remain the property of their owner. We do not reproduce them.