FERDINAND Porsche passes away

[Wretched]

As a child, the designer of the 911 conceived and built his own toys.

FERDINAND Alexander Porsche, who designed the first 911 sports car and went on to found a consumer products design firm that also carried the Porsche name, died on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria. He was 76.

Born on December 11, 1935, in Stuttgart, Germany, he was the eldest son of Dorothea and Ferry Porsche, who, along with Ferry's father Ferdinand Porsche, founded the business that grew into the sports car maker.

Porsche grew up in the car business during a turbulent time. His grandfather designed the original Volkswagen Beetle for the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s as well as tanks the Germans used in World War II.
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As a child, ''Butzi'', as he was known, enjoyed designing and building his own toys. He attended the Waldorf School in Stuttgart and studied at the Ulm School of Design - a noted German design school that closed in 1968 - before starting work in the design department of the car business in 1958.

Porsche officials recall that he quickly demonstrated strong design skills by producing the first plasticine model of a successor to the 356 series - the 40 to 60-horsepower sports cars the car maker was developing at the time.

The Porsche 911, developed directly from the model and his drawings, was shown for the first time in September 1963 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The two-door, rear-engined car had large oval headlights and a low front hood. Its sloping teardrop roof line is renowned for its simplicity and gave the car an iconic silhouette that the current model still has, more than half a century later.

The Porsche 911 went on sale in 1964 for $US5500. It evolved over the next four decades and became one of the world's best-known sports cars. Porsche debuted the seventh-generation 911 late last year. It now sells for about $US115,000.

Porsche headed the company's design studio from 1962 to 1972 and is credited with developing the Porsche 904 Carrera GTS racing car.

Originally, the 911 was to be called 901 but the company had to change it because of a trademark dispute with French car maker and rival Peugeot.

''He established a design culture in our company that has shaped our sports car to this very day,'' said Matthias Muller, chief executive of Porsche AG. ''His philosophy of design is a legacy we will honour for ever.''

Ford Motor designer Freeman Thomas remembers seeing his first 911 in the mid-1960s at his neighbour's house in suburban Orange County, California.

''I was smitten by Porsche and inspired to work for the company,'' said Thomas, who later worked on developing future 911s.

Porsche was honorary president of the car maker's supervisory board until his death but played a bigger role with the company as president of the board from 1990 to 1993, during which time he helped execute an economic turnaround for the car maker.

In 1972, Porsche left the company to establish his own design studio, relocating it two years later from Germany to Zell am See in Austria. He built the business by designing mostly men's accessories such as watches, spectacles and writing instruments, which were marketed under the Porsche Design brand. His design team also worked on a variety of industrial products, household appliances and consumer goods for other companies.

''A product that is coherent in form requires no embellishment. It is enhanced by the purity of its form,'' Porsche said of his design work. ''Good design should be honest.''

No cause of death was given.

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Vale Ferdinand and thank you for one of the greatest cars ever.