Porsche plant in Gmünd
The Porsche factory in Gmünd in Gmünd in Carinthia was the construction and production facility of the automobile manufacturer Porsche from 1944 to 1950 . In November 1944, by order of Nazi government agencies, Ferdinand Porsche moved the headquarters of the design office from Stuttgart to Carinthia , which was less threatened by bombing , where it operated under the name Porsche-Konstruktionen-Ges.mbH . In 1948, the Porsche 356 No. 1 Roadster, the first vehicle to bear the Porsche name, was manufactured in Gmünd . In 1950 the company returned to its headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and finally gave up the Gmünd location in March 1951.
history
Ferdinand Porsche , who grew up in Bohemia , began his professional career in Vienna in the 1890s and moved to Stuttgart in 1923 . In April 1931 he founded his own company there, an engineering office which , among other things, designed the Auto Union racing cars for Auto Union in the 1930s and was involved in the development of the KdF car . From 1938 Ferdinand Porsche was managing director of the newly founded Volkswagenwerk GmbH , which was supposed to produce the KdF car, which, however, was never delivered. In the years of the Second World War, Porsche, who had been military leader since 1939 , also developed the Ferdinand and Maus tanks .
When Stuttgart became the target of American bombing raids, Reich Minister Albert Speer asked Porsche to relocate his design office to the less endangered Austria. The armaments command in Salzburg presented him with a list of possible factories. Porsche selected a wood processing company in the Liesertal in Carinthia so that it wasn't too far away from Zell am See , where it already owned the Schüttgut family estate . In the summer of 1944 he bought the sawmill site and buildings in the small village of Karnerau in the municipality of Gmünd, where the Porsche designers continued to work from November, 490 kilometers from the company's headquarters in Stuttgart, but well camouflaged and safe from bombing attacks.
Ferdinand Porsche himself retired to Gmünd and Zell am See in January 1945. From there, at the end of 1945, under a pretext, he was asked to go to Baden-Baden with his son Ferry Porsche and his son-in-law and workshop manager Anton Piëch, where they were arrested by the French occupying forces. He had to spend 22 months in prisons until he was released in 1947 at the age of 72.
During the imprisonment of the company patriarch, his son Ferry Porsche took over the management of the company and developed the Porsche construction number 356, which as the Porsche 356 was the first vehicle that was to come onto the market in 1948 under the family name. The drawings for the first vehicle, the Porsche 356 No. 1 Roadster , were made personally by Ferry Porsche, and production began on July 17, 1947; almost a year later, on June 8, 1948, he started on his maiden voyage.
The 356 was partly made from Volkswagen parts in Gmünd with simple means. By 1950, up to 300 employees produced 44 coupés and 8 convertibles of the 356 type there, the bodies of which were made from aluminum , except for the steel bumpers , which came from aircraft construction, which was banned from 1945; The technical possibilities were not sufficient for more than five vehicles per month. Most of the cars were tested on a winding mountain route 17 kilometers away on the Katschberg north side and on the adjoining Turracher Höhe .
In Gmünder design office of the Porsche came out of the drawings for the construction of 356 and the designs for the all-wheel drive racing car Cisitalia Tipo 360 and the Porsche tractors of the type 312 and 313, which later as the basis for the Swabian in the company Allgaier after the "System Porsche “Manufactured tugs were used. The type designations corresponded to the consecutive numbering that Porsche assigned to all constructions regardless of the type of product. The Porsche factory in Gmünd also accepted orders for the design and manufacture of cable winches and flow turbines for use in agriculture and for ski lifts ; At that time, the small company could not have existed solely from car production.
In March 1951, Porsche gave up car assembly in Gmünd and started manufacturing again in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. A company was established in Salzburg that later became the Austrian Porsche Holding, and a design office in Dellach am Wörthersee. In Gmünd, Porsche left the factory buildings as well as some wooden houses that had been built on the factory premises for the designers who had partially moved from Stuttgart to Gmünd. Most of the buildings were demolished over the years, but the former construction building was extensively renovated in 1986. After the death of the company founder, the park at Lodron Castle in Gmünd was named after him and a bronze bust of Ferdinand Porsche was erected.
The Porsche Car Museum Gmünd
The Porsche Automuseum Gmünd is a private museum opened by Helmut Pfeifhofer in 1982, which is still run as a family business ( "Pfeifhofer GmbH" ) today. It is housed in a building of the Marhof, the former court stables of the Counts of Lodron , near the town center of Gmünd and shows exhibits from the construction history of the automobile manufacturer on two floors. Unlike the Porsche Museum on the factory premises in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, the Gmünder Automuseum is a purely privately financed company that has around 60,000 visitors annually.
Information on the company's and vehicle history is presented on display boards in an archive room, as well as a documentary video film. Many of the exhibits are regularly moved on trips by the museum's founder, Helmut Pfeifhofer. The son, Christoph Pfeifhofer, takes part in historical racing events with cars prepared in the museum workshop, in the 2005 season with a 911 3.0 RS.
Exhibited are among others
- a Steyr 30 car (type 45, built in 1932), a design by Ferdinand Porsche for Steyr-Werke AG (presented in 1930, years of construction 1932–1933)
- a VW Type 82 Kübelwagen
- a Porsche 597 hunting car
- Reconstructed wooden models of the Porsche 356 and Spyder types, as they were used from 1948 for the molding of the body panels
- several models of the Porsche 356 and the Porsche 911 series
- a Porsche 962 Coupé
- various rally (e.g. 910 / S Bergspyder ) and formula racing cars (e.g. Formula Super V ) from Porsche production
Showroom of the Porsche Museum
Steyr 30, built in 1932
VW Kübelwagen Type 82
Porsche 962 Imsa Coupé by Mario Andretti
Web links
Coordinates: 46 ° 54 ′ 29 ″ N , 13 ° 31 ′ 59 ″ E