Ferdinand Porsche founded the company called "Dr. Ing. H. C. F. Porsche GmbH" in 1931, with main offices at Kronenstraße 24 in the center of Stuttgart.

Initially, the company offered automotive vehicle development and consulting work, but did not build any cars in its own name. One of the first tasks that the new company received was from the German government to design a car for the people, which is a "Volkswagen".

This resulted in the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the most successful car designs of all time.

The Porsche 64 was developed in 1939 using many components of the Beetle.

During World War II, Volkswagen's production turned to the military version of the Beetle, the Kübelwagen, [7] 52,000 produced, and Schwimmwagen, 15,584 produced.

Porsche produced several designs for heavy tanks during the war, losing to Henschel & Son in both contracts that led to Tiger I and Tiger II. However, not all that work was wasted, as the Porsche chassis designed for the Tiger I was used as a base for the tank destroyer Elefant. Porsche also developed the super heavy Maus tank in the final stages of the war, producing two prototypes.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the Volkswagen factory in KdF-Stadt fell to the British. Ferdinand lost his position as chairman of Volkswagen's board of directors and Ivan Hirst, a major in the British army, was in charge of the factory.

(In Wolfsburg, the Volkswagen company magazine dubbed him "The British major who saved Volkswagen".)

On December 15 of that year, Ferdinand was arrested for war crimes, but not tried. During his 20 months in prison, Ferdinand Porsche's son, Ferry Porsche, decided to build his own car because he couldn't find one he wanted to buy.

He also had to run the company on some of his toughest days until his father's release in August 1947.

The first models of what would become the 356 were built at a small sawmill in Gmünd, Austria.

The prototype car was shown to German car dealers, and when orders reached a defined limit, production (with aluminum body) was started by Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH founded by Ferry and Louise. Many consider the 356 to be the first Porsche simply because it was the first model sold by the new company.

After the production of 356 it was taken over by the father of Dr. Ing. H.c. F. Porsche GmbH in Stuttgart in 1950, Porsche hired a Zuffenhausen-based company, Reutter Karosserie, which previously collaborated with the Volkswagen Beetle prototype company to produce the 356 steel body. In 1952, Porsche built an assembly plant (Werk 2) in front of Reutter Karosserie; the main road in front of Werk 1, Porsche's oldest building, is now known as Porschestrasse.

The 356 was certified in 1948

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