The Porsche company was founded by Ferdinand Porsche in 1931.
The original business was named Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH and was established in Stuttgart with Adolf Rosenberger and Anton Piëch. It began as an engineering, design, and consulting firm rather than a car manufacturer selling vehicles under the Porsche name.
One of its earliest major assignments was designing the Volkswagen Beetle for the German government. Porsche later developed the Type 64 sports car in 1939, using many Beetle components. The company’s first production car, the Porsche 356, arrived after World War II in 1948, which is why that year is sometimes mistakenly given as Porsche’s founding date.
The company was renamed Porsche AG in 1972 when it became a public limited company. Ferdinand Porsche died in 1951, but his son Ferry Porsche led the family business into sports-car production and helped establish the brand’s modern identity.