Ferdinand Porsche became interested in questions of electricity at an early age. At his parents’ request, however, he completed an apprenticeship as a tinsmith and in 1893 joined the electrical company Bela Egger & Co. (later Brown Boveri) in Vienna.
Porsche succeeded in designing an electric wheel hub motor in 1897, when he joined the k. u. k. Hofwagenfabrik Jacob Lohner & Co. Just three years later, the Lohner-Porsche presented at the Paris World’s Fair attracted great interest. In 1906 Porsche went to Austro-Daimler in Wiener Neustadt as technical director, and from 1917 general director.
In 1923 he moved to Stuttgart, where he became technical director and member of the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. In 1929 Porsche returned to Austria and became Technical Director of Steyr-Werke AG. The most important success of the ingenious designer was the VW Beetle. In 1938, Adolf Hitler laid the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. In 1931, Porsche founded its own design office in Stuttgart. In 1948, the Porsche sports car brand was created there.