By the late 1950s, the German Wirtschaftswunder was well underway and as the economy grew, so traffic density increased. This was particularly noticeable around Stuttgart often making testing on local Autobahnen inconvenient and it caused Ferry to think about creating his own test track. Thanks to its close relationship with VW, Porsche could always use the vast Ehra-Lessien … [Read more...]
Articles by: Kieron Fennelly
Tilman Brodbeck remembers
To be able to write on your résumé that you worked for one of Porsche’s CEOs would be quite an achievement. Tilman Brodbeck can however do a little better than that, for in a 40-year career, he was assistant to no fewer than five successive Porsche presidents. But, as he tells us, he held other posts too. When he started at Zuffenhausen, the company was still ruled by Ferry … [Read more...]
Mike de ‘Udy and the Carrera Six
The Carrera Six, as Porsche officially called the 906, was a radically different car from its predecessor, the 904 GTS. The 904 was a sleek glass fibre bodied racer penned by Butzi Porsche, and it took over as Porsche’s competition model following such illustrious forebears as the RS 718 and RS 61 which brought the Stuttgart manufacturer so many victories in the early sixties. … [Read more...]
Jean Behra – Porschiste
Staring out of period black and white photographs, Jean Behra’s handsome, but battered face tells its own story: a combative soul who seemed to thrive only when living on the ragged edge and for whom an exploit was either going to work or it wasn’t: “Ou ca passe ou ça casse.” The British press used to talk about the ‘fiery’ Frenchman while L’Equipe would refer to his … [Read more...]
Dr Ulrich Bez – father of the 993
Hailing from the Bad Cannstatt district of Stuttgart, Ulrich Bez, who as Porsche Technical supremo hatched the 993, had two significant stints at Porsche. During the 1970s he worked in research and was responsible for establishing Porsche’s crash test programme; in the 1980s, he followed Porsche’s head of research to BMW and set up BMW Technik, the department which designed the … [Read more...]
Peter Falk – Porsche’s enduring engineer
In a 34-year career at Porsche, the influence of Peter Falk - Porsche's enduring engineer, can be found throughout the air-cooled and transaxle model ranges, and extends even to the 986/996 generation. He was also team manager for many of Porsche’s Le Mans efforts and oversaw the company’s rise from class winner to crushing overall victory in 1970/71, repeating this performance … [Read more...]
Helmuth Bott – Porsche’s Quiet Engineer
The inspired engineer behind so much of Porsche’s success, Helmuth Bott has long remained the company’s eminence grise, but little has been written about him. Now, Porsche Road & Race, looks at both the professional and private life of one of Porsche’s most devoted servants, revered by his subordinates, but whose contribution went increasingly unrecognised by the … [Read more...]
Rolf Stommelen – a driver for all circumstances
Rolf Stommelen was one of Germany’s leading racing drivers for over a decade and if as the title (above) of his biography implies, he could drive anything anywhere, this was largely true. Although his Formula 1 career with mediocre teams was patchy, in production cars he was reliably top class. But it was with Porsches that Stommelen was at his best, from amateur wins in his … [Read more...]
Jürgen Barth – A Profile
More books have been written about Porsche than any other car company so the publication in English of another tome is hardly headline news until you realise that the author, exceptionally, is a Porsche insider, but not just any insider. Jürgen Barth was at the epicentre of Porsche’s racing activity from the time he joined the Zuffenhausen payroll in 1966 until he retired four … [Read more...]
Valentin Schäffer – Porsche’s turbo master
Another keen young recruitee to Zuffenhausen in the early 1950s, Valentin Schäffer, would become Porsche’s racing turbo specialist and engineer the induction systems that endowed Porsche sports racers with a dominance that lasted decades. The compact figure of Valentin Schäffer trotted up the steps of the Porsche Museum with the zest of a man much younger than his eighty-two … [Read more...]
