BS Fuji’s Porsche Special

Yesterday, BS Fuji aired a program called “Evolution and Challenge: A Roadmap for Sports Cars.”

Porsche. Its full corporate name is Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
In other words, Porsche is an engineering company. And what Porsche builds isn’t just cars—it builds sports cars that stir the soul. Having spent more than 60 years creating sports cars, where did Porsche come from, and where is it headed?
To find out, essayist Yataro Matsuura set off on a journey.
＊Excerpt from “Evolution and Challenge: A Roadmap for Sports Cars” | BS Fuji

It was a really good program.

I was surprised to learn that “the very first car Ferdinand Porsche built, 120 years ago, was an electric vehicle—and its design was almost identical to that of today’s plug-in hybrids.”

Apparently, Porsche designs its cars with an eye to building vehicles that will still feel relevant 20 or 30 years from now. Of course, the company is aware of its competitors, but it doesn’t simply follow their lead. Instead, it builds cars guided by its own conviction about “what a Porsche should be.” That’s pretty inspiring.

A Panamera for the Journey

The car essayist Matsuura used to get around in was a new white Panamera 4 E-Hybrid. It looked incredibly cool, so as a Panamera fan, I’d say the car alone made the program worth watching. At the end, the show featured the Porsche Automuseum Helmut Pfeifhofer, located in the small Austrian town of Gmünd, nestled in the mountains.

＊Image courtesy of the Porsche Automuseum Helmut Pfeifhofer website

It’s not widely known, but from 1944 to 1950, Porsche reportedly set up a factory in Gmünd, Austria, where it produced cars after relocating its operations there during World War II. The museum’s director, who is over 80, remembers Porsche’s days producing cars in Gmünd and is a passionate Porsche fan. (Building a museum takes more than your average fan. And I bet he’s pretty well-off, too.)

The director said:

“When I bought and drove a used Porsche for the first time as a teenager, I was overcome with a feeling I couldn’t put into words. It was as if I’d become one with the car.”

Even the Porsches of around 70 years ago delivered that feeling of driver and car becoming one, and the joy of driving. That hasn’t changed—in fact, it continues to evolve. It’s truly remarkable.

The Porsche fans featured in the program were the real deal: some owned cars of which only a few dozen exist worldwide, while others had models from the air-cooled era. It made me feel a little embarrassed, as if it were presumptuous for someone like me to call myself a Porsche fan.

I need to learn a lot more about Porsche. I’d love to visit the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart again.