Whereas Porsche as a sports activities automotive firm dates again to the registration of the first Porsche 356 in 1948, the corporate’s roots return additional, to the Porsche engineering firm based by Ferdinand Porsche in 1931.
Nevertheless, Porsche was already in his 50s when he based his eponymous firm, and thus he already designed a number of vehicles whereas working at different corporations. A type of was when Porsche was working because the managing director of an Austrian automotive firm generally known as Austro Daimler.
It was there the place, on the age of 45, he began work on the Austro Daimler ADS-R race automotive, a Targa Florio class champion nicknamed Sascha and at present the oldest drivable automotive on the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. It lately returned to Wiener Neustadt in Austria, the place Austro Daimler was positioned. The corporate was finally merged in 1934 with Steyr Daimler Puch, which at present operates as Magna Steyr.
Whereas working at Austro Daimler, Porsche needed to construct a small, light-weight, and inexpensive automotive with 4 seats, which is also simply produced in excessive volumes, a aim that he additionally envisioned for the Volkswagen Beetle that might come later. Nevertheless, to construct sufficient curiosity to get the inexperienced mild for manufacturing from Austro Daimler’s board, he additionally designed a race automotive based mostly on the street automotive’s operating gear. The ensuing ADS-R shared the water-cooled 1.1-liter inline-4 of the street automotive, however skipped the complete physique and solely featured a single seat for the motive force. The engine was rated at near 50 hp and had simply 1,318 kilos to hold.
1922 Austro Daimler ADS-R race automotive “Sascha”
The above photograph exhibits Alexander Joseph Graf Kolowrat-Krakowsk to the left of an ADS-R, and Ferdinand Porsche and a younger Ferry Porsche to the suitable
The Sascha nickname got here from Alexander Joseph Graf Kolowrat-Krakowsky, who funded the venture and whose personal nickname was Sascha. 4 prototypes have been constructed, and all 4 celebrated their premiere on the 1922 Targa Florio. To make them simple to establish from afar, Kolowrat-Krakowsky got here up with the thought to color enjoying card symbols on the our bodies.
The ADS-R managed a one-two end on the race. However regardless of that and plenty of extra racing successes, the manufacturing inexperienced mild was by no means given, due largely to the extreme inflation hassle Austria and neighboring Germany have been going via on the time.
To mark the one hundredth anniversary of the ADS-R, Porsche and its official journal, “Christophorus,” had workers on the Porsche Museum put together the automotive for a return to Wiener Neustadt. Whereas the Austro Daimler manufacturing facility is now not there, streets like Ferdinand-Porsche-Ring remind guests of the city’s heritage.
