Porsche’s Grand Prix Austro Daimlers

Background and Post-War Context

Coming out of World War 1, Ferdinand Porsche was in complete charge of Austro Daimler, one of the greatest and most versatile manufacturing companies of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. In peacetime his factory at Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna, had to reach out to world markets from an Austria shrunken to a tenth of its former size. A great believer in the merits of motor sports for both technology and publicity, Porsche started right away on the design and construction of racing cars.

The pinnacle of the sport, best known for its competitiveness and demonstration of high technology, was Grand Prix racing. First contested in 1906 as the French Grand Prix, G.P. racing continued to 1914, the first time that engine displacement was used to create a common technical format for competitors. As a result the 1914 race among 4½-liter cars was “notable for a constant and fierce international and inter-company duel,” wrote Laurence Pomeroy, Jr. The world waited eagerly for the sport’s post-war resumption.