What kind of company is that? The namesake was actually an autodidact in electrical engineering. This company was hardly particularly cheap. Even the first Lohner Porsche was so expensive that it could have ruined the company. Alas a National Socialist dictator had to come and practically force Ferdinand Porsche to construct the Beetle.

Nevertheless, he achieved incredible things, even if after the crazy success of the Beetle, many people claimed its design as their own. Did the first Porsche descend from the Beetle or were there already plans during its construction to make something significantly sportier out of it? But with the team that still existed after the Second World War, his son was able to make something of it.

Were the first Porsches just tuned Beetles? No, because on the one hand they had a distinctly unique body and people tuned it who were also involved in its construction. They knew that you first had to start with cooling the oil, for example, and only then with the mixture supply.

Under Ferry Porsche's patient leadership, the company thrived despite significant obstacles to be overcome, not without the significant help of VW, where one had already always felt a commitment to Porsche. If there is a company that has proven that you can sell more cars through sporting success, then it was Porsche, perhaps at the same time as Ferrari, still in a different league at the time.

Technically, Ferry Porsche first came to the fore for outsiders when, together with his son Alexander, he developed the 911. It was actually too expensive again, but has prevailed. The engine let shine through from all corners the possibilities of increasing performance. And so it went up the ladder of evolution very quickly.

The company grew very strongly, but one noticed that although there were an enormous number of racing successes, but that in the first league unfortunately too few were achieved. After only conditional approval from Ferry, Ferdinand Piëch took a high financial risk and had the 917 built with twelve cylinders. It was a struggle, as you might expect, but in the end the car greatly increased Porsche's fame.

The success led to discord because it could be attributed to a member of the parallel family, leading Ferry and his sister to make the initially wise decision to remove all family members, including themselves, from the company. His successor was Ernst Fuhrmann, who, starting in 1954, gave the engine, which was still similar to that of the Beetle, a huge boost with an adventurous engine control system.

A good engineer does not have to be unconditionally a good manager. In any case, Fuhrmann had found no remedy against the falling dollar rate at the end of the 1970s, as this was always an important sales market for Porsche. The first deliveries of the Beetle were only brought to the dealers there by linking them to the allocation of a Porsche. Now it should have been the other way around, but the VW dealers were usually no longer Porsche dealers.

In between, the 928 introduced in 1977 flopped, actually a logical step towards luxury and comfort. Even the German-American Peter W. Schulz was unable to turn the tide by the end of 1987. Wendelin Wiedeking, who also will not soon be forgotten at Porsche, entered the stage. He realized that customers were sticking with the iconic 911.

He skilfully not only relied on further tuning, but also used the easy-to-manage possibility of turning the motor-gear unit to create an entry-level model with dosed underperformance, as a kind of successor to the unsuccessful 914/6. As a mid-engine convertible, the Boxster is actually superior to the 911, but it is always offered at a price far below it, for the benefit of its profit skimming to this day.

The step to the Coupé Cayman almost ten years later was only logical, but not the take-over of the Touran as a Cayenne with the front similar to the 911. And what hardly anyone would have expected, people are willing to pay more for a Porsche trademark on the car, even if the body of both vehicles is made in the VW plant in Bratislava

Making money is more in the blood of this company than others. And so, in 2013, the Audi Q5 was added to the range as a Porsche Macan. In the meantime, all shyness about the diesel engine had been given up, long ago with the Cayenne. It took revenge, because it brought Porsche into the circle of the accused in the diesel scandal. In the meantime, the diesel paths have long been abandoned.

Another scandal followed when Wiedeking and those involved in the Board of Directors got cocky. One had made an incredible amount of money, but of course not enough to buy VW. The plan: to try it anyway with borrowed money and then repay the debt from VW's assets afterwards. Obviously, the financial crisis of 2008 and the incredible increase in interest rates prevented this project. Wiedeking had to resign.

Today, Porsche is probably the most profitable subsidiary of VW, but VW also owns 53 percent of the ordinary shares of Porsche Holding, which in turn belongs to the Piëch and Porsche families. In 2009 the Panamera was presented as a four-seater sedan and in 2019 the Taycan as the first purely electrically powered Porsche.