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Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Porsche Goes Green, Builds EVs In 1899, Hybrids In 1901
Porsche-Diesel! We Didn't Know!

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Novaload
10/04/09

In reply to Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
One of these days Germany will have to come to terms with its past.
And speaking of Nazis, and cars, Henry Ford, anyone?
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brandegee
10/05/09

@Novaload: Where Ford's angle seemed to be outright bigotry, Porsche seemed to be a naive engineer caught up in a system he neither cared for nor was particularly disgusted by. For example, he is known to have complained about working conditions in the VW wartime factory, of which he was the head for a time, but we don't know whether this was out of compassion or out of concerns for productivity.

And there was also a nasty question about whether the some children of the forced laborers at this factory were deliberately killed. He may have been too busy testing Kubelwagens and designing tank engines to notice.

He did pay for his efforts with some time in a cozy French lockup, but deft finagling by family and friends sprung him out before the ultimate vengeance could take root.
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Flathead Smith
10/04/09

In reply to Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
I will say this about ole Ferdinand, it is my understanding that he never did join the Nazi party, and that is quite an accomplishment when you consider the day. We like to say that we would have left Germany if faced with such a thing as the Nazi party, but remember it was a matter of incrementalism. In other words it was a situation that took years to devolve into what occurred under Hitler that I would argue started not in 1933, when he came to power, but probably started many years before. By the time Germany became a nightmare, it was nearly too late for anyone to stand a say, "this is wrong". A very few did and died, most just kept there mouths shut, for they thought it was too late, or were involved intimately with the horrible machine.

Here is good article about an everyday man named Franz Jagerstatter. He was abandoned by all except his wife, but he stood his ground and was executed by guillotine.

[en.wikipedia.org]

[www.catholicpeacefellowship.org]

A majority of the population when faced with someone like Hitler will give in to save his life, rather than take a chance and be destroyed. My question to you is this, what would you do?
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mechimike
10/04/09

@Flathead Smith: I see creeping elements of this mentality in our political system here in the U.S.S.A. While some may scoff and sneer at my paranoia, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I like to keep them in the refrigerator. Keeps the powder dry and the action quicker.
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powermatic
10/04/09

@Flathead Smith: Ferdinand may or may not have belonged to the Nazi party (I've read accounts that have him joining in 1937) but there's no doubt that he worked closely and often with Hitler personally on civilian and military designs, and went along with the use of slave labor in his industrial plants. The guy was no saint-not by any stretch of the imagination, whether or not he officially belonged to the party or not. Others in Germany (including non-Jews) saw the upcoming rise of the military dictatorship and fought against it-Porsche was very much not one of those people, and isn't really to be congratulated for anything from a humanitarian, or courage in the face of adversity, basis.
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Flathead Smith
10/05/09

@powermatic: This is true, and by working closely with Hitler he helped to further the Nazi party more than many. I’m sure if you asked him why he did, his excuse would not have been much different than the general population. In fact, some of the original concept drawings of the VW Beetle came from ole Adolph himself, which he probably copied, see my next posting.
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Flathead Smith
10/05/09

Something kind of interesting about the Volkswagen is that there is good evidence that the idea of the car, and even the Volkswagen name, probably came from a man named Josef Ganz, a Jew. This car was first shown at a car show in 1933, at which Hitler was present. Ganz was arrested within the year and charged with blackmail, by the Gestapo, for attempting to protect his patent rights.
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tonyola
10/04/09

In reply to Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
Wonder if there is to be a second book by Ludvigsen covering Porsche's later career? If so, let's hope it's honest about his relationships with the Nazis. If there is no second book, then there are too many questions left unanswered.

In 1932, Porsche visited the USSR and the Soviets offered him a high ministry position with extremely generous perks and basically a blank check for vehicle development. Porsche turned it down, but what if it was Stalin rather than Hitler who sponsored and pushed the Volkswagen?
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skitter
10/04/09

@tonyola: Bereft of their bugs and microbuses, what would hippies and impoverished university types have driven? Though slow to recognize a market, with markedly less competition and more incentive before the Malaise, the American auto industry might have taken a very different path. And without the 911, what target would every other manufacturer gun for while simultaneously deriding its layout? What car would we long for while mocking its demographic? There are many that fit the mold, but none with the longevity. The NSX still would have happened, British Leyland would have died regardless, leaving, in my mind, only Alfa Romeo with the potential to bridge the MGs and the Maseratis.
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tonyola
10/04/09

@skitter: The USSR was never really big on personal transportation for its citizens - don't want the masses scooting around all over the place unsupervised, you know. A People's Car for the Soviet people probably wouldn't have gotten very far. For export, however, it might have been a completely different story. The USSR was always looking for a way to get hard western currency, and flooding Europe with cheap People's Cars subsidized by the State might have been an effective means to get that currency. The USSR was still seemingly relatively benign to many people in the west until the late 1930s, and even afterwards, forced to choose between supporting the Nazis and the Soviets, many would have gone with the latter. In addition, Porsche's talent would have greatly benefited the Soviet war machine during WWII.
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Edited by tonyola at 10/04/09 4:56 PM tonyola was starred tonyola was unstarred

skitter
10/04/09

@tonyola: Very true, but the US markets still would have been fundamentally altered. American beliefs were not so much free market or capitalist, but anti-USSR. Trading with 'the communists' was out of the question.
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RMcG
10/04/09

In reply to Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
Its a superb book. I got the limited edition last year. Very impressive if you are a Porsche nut.
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gallahad
10/04/09

In reply to Ferdinand Porsche - Genesis Of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen
It does seem weird that they would leave out the Nazi years, not because of the "zomg he worked for the Nazis" thing (since, as I understand, what he did for them was no different than what Chevy, Ford, et al did for the US war effort), but because it's another -- and very different -- phase of engineering for a very gifted engineer. Maybe he had things to say about the Fuhrer, but what about technical feats he might have pulled off for the war machine?
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bozoerrebbe
10/04/09

@gallahad: Porsche's relationship with the Nazi regime was a bit closer than that of American industry to the FDR administration and the war effort.

To begin with, Porsche worked with Hitler as early as 1934, long before the war, when the engineer took the Nazi leader's commission to design the KDF-Wagen, what became known as the VW Beetle. The KDF program, ostensibly to provide German workers with automobiles, was really a Nazi scam, and few if any workers got the cars they'd paid for with paycheck deductions. I don't know exactly when Dr. Porsche got the idea that the VW platform would make a good utility vehicle for the Wehrmacht, but before many KDFWagens could be built, the factory was changed over to produce the Jeep-like Kubelwagen. During the war, Porsche designed other weapons, including the main battle tanks for the German army.

Yes, Detroit was the arsenal of democracy and Chrysler built tanks, Ford built bombers (and jeeps), and GM ended up building the Saturn V if I'm not mistaken. But Dr. Porsche seemed a bit too eager to work with the Nazis for my tastes. YMMV

Ironically, just as Ludvigsen's book on Dr. Porsche is released, so is Dutch engineer Paul Schilperoord's work Het Ware Verhaal van de Kever: hoe Hitler het ontwerp van een Joods genie confisqueerde, The True Story of the Beetle: how Hitler confiscated the design of a Jewish genius, about Josef Ganz, whose design for the Volkswagen may have been stolen by Hitler and used by Porsche.

[www.ganz-volkswagen.org]

Here's the 1934 Standard Superior, based on Ganz' design.
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gallahad
10/05/09

@bozoerrebbe: Huh. The more you know :)
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Ben Hoback
06/19/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
I want to express to the writing staff at Jalopnik that I really enjoy their "FEATURE" articles. They are numerous, regular in occurrence, and my favorites read like conversational technical briefings augmented with Pretty Pictures. Print media feel as of late, too... the article layout between the text and images puts the information in nice, ADHD-sized knowledge nuggets punctuated with car pr0n. Good $hit, gentlemen.
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Peter Orosz
06/19/09

@Ben Hoback: As the author of this particular feature, I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
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Six Flags Over Tomsk
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Great work as usual, Peter. Rumor was a while back that Panoz was looking at developing a new LMP1 machine. Hopefully that's still the case.
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Maymar
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Isn't the Miata (and possibly the RX-7/8) accepted as a Front-Mid engined car? I suppose it demonstrates the principle well also.
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vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Here's a much better video showing the sheer awesomeness of the Panoz...

I liked Don Panoz's take of front vs. mid/rear engined cars, "I've never seen a horse push a cart before. Why would I put by engine back there?" So ridiculous and American I love it.
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Al Navarro
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Pretty much my favorite Scalextric car of all time is the Panoz in Visteon livery.
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philibuster
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
I wonder if it ever caused the drivers problems with the seating position so far back. Like visibility.
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P161911 probably shoudn't have
06/16/09

@philibuster: I'm not sure about visibility, but I do remember hearing that some quirk of the aerodynamics basically tried to rip the driver's helmet off his head on the LMP-1. I would hope that this was corrected after a couple of races.
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beercheck
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Excellent piece. Again.

Which begs the question: Isn't it about time for Pete to suddenly, unceremoniously.....disappear?
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YankBoffin
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Great read.

Also, I've heard the odd proportions and thunderous yank sound have made the Panoz cars a crowd favorite at Le Mans, even among the French.
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brandegee
06/16/09

@YankBoffin: It's nice to see something unusual in the sea of LMP-spec MR prototypes. The front-engine GT cars tend to be distinctive anyway...Gillet Vertigo, Lister Storm, Dodge Viper and so on.

The Corvettes are also a French favorite...perhaps the name and the yellow color have something to do with it.
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Jo Schmo
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
Awesome as always Peter!
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Syrax
06/16/09

In reply to Panoz Batmobile: Proof Front-Engined Race Cars Don't Suck
You forgot to mention John Cooper. He was very important in establishing the mid engine as the norm.
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pj134
06/16/09

@Ambiguously Unfunny Syrax: in the third paragraph click pesky i think.
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Syrax
06/16/09

@pj134: Dammit.
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