Daily Slideshow: Celebrating 70 Years of Porsche Superiority

One 70 Year Old with no Intentions of Slowing Down

The past year has been incredibly memorable for fans of Porsche. It appears as though they've reached the longevity now where historic Porsche milestones start popping up in clusters. For starters, just last year they saw the millionth Porsche 911 rolling off the assembly line. Porsche's 2018 milestone might not roll off the tongue quite as smoothly, but it's no less worthy of celebration. This year marks the 70th anniversary of Porsche's first-ever road car, the Porsche 356. Company founder, Ferdinand Porsche had been a formidable force within the German auto industry for years before that, but '48 signified the real beginning of the legacy we admire today. 

A Reputation Well-Earned

What do you think of first when Porsche comes to mind? Performance? Superior engineering? Motorsports mastery?

Porsche have earned one of the strongest reputations in the auto industry, and not without reason. Much in the same way that Mercedes-Benz or Rolls-Royce have become synonymous with posh luxury, the same can be said for Porsche when it comes to performance and obsessive finesse. And Porsche is obsessive when it comes to design. Not that we're complaining; some of the details they've incorporated in their engineering are no short of genius. 

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Perfection in the Details

One example of Porsche's detail-oriented innovation is their placement of the ignition keyhole on the left side. Perhaps you've wondered why they would design it contrary to the industry standard. According to Porsche, this is to enable a driver to work the gearshift while turning the ignition. It's tiny details like that which show the passion Porsche have for their product.

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Early Excellence and Steady Success

Although the Porsche 356 was released in 1948, the company's history goes back well-farther than that. Ferdinand Porsche was in the auto business as early as 1931, albeit largely in a consulting context. Ferdinand was the creator of the very first Volkswagen, the ultra-successful automobile we now know as Beetle. The resemblance would become more a matter of necessity in the grim post-war period; what became the 356 was built around a strict scarcity of parts in a Germany that had recently been devastated by losing the war. Ferdinand Porsche himself was detained for his role in the German wartime industry.

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Racing Spirit

Throughout the 1930s, the Porsche name would become associated primarily with racing, with many early designs bearing resemblance to the Beetle. From the 1939 Porsche 64 onward, the company has maintained an impressive presence in the racing world. Although success in motorsports was fairly lowkey for the first couple of decades post-war, they established themselves as veritable heavyweights by the end of the 1960s; a Porsche 917 would take home the championship in the legendary 24 Hours of LeMans in 1969. From that point, there wasn't a serious auto enthusiast the world over who could deny Porsche's place at the big kids' table.

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A Family-Oriented Shift for Modern Times

By the turn of the millennium, the auto market had already evolved from the early days of Porsche success. Between environmental concerns, fuel prices, and-- not least of all-- the Great Recession of the last decade, people have been generally less interested in flashy performance cars. Although there are at least a couple of hardcore purists who would have considered Porsche to be "selling out," their introduction of the Cayenne and Macan crossovers have proved runaway successes. It's now to the point where Porsche's crossover and family-friendly SUV segments vastly outsell the cars they're actually known for; an article at The Drive cites a 3-to-1 sales ratio between the Macan and 911 in 2017. While this domestic maturity is a lot less glamorous than what we're used to from the Porsche we've grown to love, consider where they might be if they had stuck exclusively to sports cars, especially at a time when a significant portion of their customer base was more concerned with saving their mortgage than grabbing fresh wheels.

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The Future: Refined

The Porsche saga isn't over-- far from in fact if the plans in the pipeline have any truth to them. For one, Porsche will be releasing their first all-electric car at the end of 2019. The Porsche Mission E is reported to be likely priced along the lines of their Panamera line when it finally hits dealerships. Between the steps towards EV tech, the exemplary success of their crossovers, and the perennial sensation of their iconic roadsters, one might only imagine where they'll have taken their meticulous vision in another 70 years.