Where Is Porsche From? Porsche History, Explained: Stuttgart, 1931 and the First Porsche

The question	The answer	What kind of fact that is
What country is Porsche from?	Germany	Headquarters and main factory in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Baden-Württemberg.
When was Porsche founded?	25 April 1931	The day Ferdinand Porsche’s design office entered the Stuttgart commercial register.
Who founded it?	Ferdinand Porsche	With Adolf Rosenberger and Anton Piëch. Born in 1875 in Maffersdorf, Bohemia, today in the Czech Republic.
What was the first Porsche?	356 No. 1, 1948	A mid-engined roadster built in Gmünd, Austria; road-approved on 8 June 1948.
Where are 911s built?	Zuffenhausen	Porsche’s own words: the headquarters, “where all 911s are manufactured”.
Who owns Porsche?	Volkswagen and Porsche SE	VW holds 75% minus one of the voting shares, Porsche SE 25% plus one. Listed in Frankfurt since 29 September 2022.
The 911 you can drive here	from $749/day	The 911 Targa; the 911 Cabriolet from $1,200/day.

The Stuttgart car in Los Angeles Porsche 911 Cabriolet Built in Zuffenhausen, rear-engined, roof down by the second light on Sunset. The live calendar and rate are on its page. Dates and rate →

Where is Porsche from? Stuttgart, Germany — not Italy

Porsche is a German company from Stuttgart. It was founded there in 1931, it builds its sports cars there today, and the crest on every bonnet carries the city’s own arms.

The headquarters and main factory are in Zuffenhausen, a district in the north of Stuttgart, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. When Porsche built its one-millionth 911 in May 2017, its press release described the plant as the production site at the headquarters in Zuffenhausen, “where all 911s are manufactured”. The crest is the plainest clue of all: it is drawn from the coat of arms of the old state of Württemberg, with the arms of Stuttgart set in the middle.

So why do so many people search “is Porsche Italian”? Three reasons, none of which holds up. The name sounds Italian, but it is a surname: Ferdinand Porsche’s. Some of the model names are Italian — Porsche’s own history of the 911 Targa says it was named after the Targa Florio, the Sicilian road race where Porsche had great success from the mid-1950s. And people put every exotic car in one mental box with Ferrari and Lamborghini, which are Italian. Porsche is the German one.

The honest complication is the founder, not the company. Ferdinand Porsche was born on 3 September 1875 in the North Bohemian town of Maffersdorf, now the Czech district of Vratislavice, then part of Austria-Hungary. He worked in Vienna, Wiener Neustadt and Steyr before founding his own office in Stuttgart; he chose Czechoslovak citizenship after the First World War and was made a German citizen in 1934. The first Porsche cars were built in Austria. But the company was founded in Germany, has been run from Stuttgart since 1949, and is German by every measure that matters to a buyer.

When was Porsche founded, and who founded it?

Porsche was founded in 1931, and it began as a design office rather than a car maker. On 25 April 1931 Ferdinand Porsche’s office was entered in the Stuttgart commercial register as “Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, Konstruktion und Beratung für Motoren- und Fahrzeugbau” — design and consulting for engines and vehicles. His partners were Adolf Rosenberger and Anton Piëch.

For its first seventeen years the business designed cars for other companies. The first order came in spring 1931 from Wanderer, for a 1.5-litre six-cylinder engine and chassis under the internal number Type 7. In 1933 Auto Union commissioned a sixteen-cylinder racing car, and soon after came the prototypes for the car that became the Volkswagen Beetle. Every one of those projects carried a Porsche type number, and none of them carried the Porsche name.

The war moved the office out of Stuttgart. With air raids on the city increasing, it was relocated in 1944 to Gmünd in Carinthia, Austria. In April 1947 Ferry Porsche, Ferdinand’s son, founded Porsche Konstruktionsbüro GmbH there with his sister Louise Piëch, and that spring he drew up the first ideas for a sports car of their own. It was given the next number in the sequence: 356.

What was the first Porsche car?

The first car to bear the Porsche name is the 356 “No. 1” Roadster. A road-ready chassis was finished in February 1948, an aluminium roadster body went on it, and on 8 June 1948 the Carinthian provincial government gave it its general operating permit. Porsche calls it the first vehicle to bear the Porsche name.

No. 1 was mid-engined, with its flat-four ahead of the rear axle. The 356s that followed it into production put the engine behind the axle, the layout the 911 still uses. Porsche built approximately fifty cars in Gmünd, with aluminium bodies, before moving back to Germany; Porsche’s own timeline has it returning to Stuttgart in November 1949, and series production of the 356 starting in a hall in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen in March 1950. When the 356 ended in 1965, approximately 76,000 had been built.

There is one rival for the title. The Type 64 is a 1939 aluminium streamliner, three of them completed, built for a Berlin–Rome race scheduled for September 1939 that did not take place. Many people consider it the first car from what became Porsche, and its story — including the evening at auction when it did not sell — is in the most expensive Porsche ever sold. The distinction is simple: the Type 64 came out of the design office, while the 356 was the first car Porsche built and sold under its own name.

Who makes Porsche, and who owns it today?

Porsche cars are made by Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG — Porsche AG — which is still headquartered in Zuffenhausen. Ownership is the part that confuses people, because there are two companies called Porsche, and Volkswagen sits between them.

Porsche AG is the car company. It listed on the stock market on 29 September 2022. According to its own 2025 annual report, it has 911 million shares — half of them ordinary voting shares, which are not listed, and half non-voting preferred shares, which trade in Frankfurt. Volkswagen AG holds 75.0% minus one of the ordinary shares through Porsche Holding Stuttgart GmbH; Porsche Automobil Holding SE holds 25.0% plus one.

Porsche SE is the holding company. It describes itself as an investment holding company with family ties, based in Stuttgart, and it holds the majority of the ordinary shares in Volkswagen AG as well as its quarter of Porsche AG. So the honest one-line answer to “who owns Porsche” is: Volkswagen controls the car company, and a Porsche holding company tied to the founding family holds the majority of Volkswagen’s voting shares.

None of that changes where the cars come from. The 911 is built in Zuffenhausen, as it always has been, and when the millionth one left the line in 2017 Porsche counted over 70 per cent of all 911s ever built as still ready to drive.

Porsche history timeline

The company’s whole history in one table, from the founder’s birth to the listing. Dates are Porsche’s own, from its newsroom histories, unless the row says otherwise.

What happened	When	Why it matters
Ferdinand Porsche born in Maffersdorf, Bohemia	3 Sep 1875	The founder was born in Austria-Hungary, in today’s Czech Republic.
Design office registered in Stuttgart	25 Apr 1931	The founding date. An engineering consultancy, not yet a car maker.
First commission: Wanderer, Type 7	1931	A 1.5-litre six and a chassis, designed for another brand.
Type 64 streamliners	1939	Three built for a race the war cancelled. Wikipedia’s dating.
Office moves to Gmünd, Austria	1944	Air raids on Stuttgart.
356 “No. 1” Roadster approved for the road	8 Jun 1948	The first car with the Porsche name.
Porsche returns to Stuttgart	Nov 1949	Home for good.
356 series production in Zuffenhausen	Mar 1950	Porsche becomes a German car maker in its own factory district.
The 901 shown at the Frankfurt motor show	Sep 1963	Renamed 911 before sale, and still built today.
First overall Le Mans win, with the 917	1970	The start of the racing record that sets the collector prices.
911 Turbo shown in Paris	1974	The turbocharged 911.
Boxster goes into series production	1996	Three years after the concept at Detroit: the mid-engined roadster.
First four-door Porsche goes into production	2002	Porsche’s first SUV, and the end of the sports-car-only company.
One-millionth 911, Zuffenhausen	11 May 2017	A Carrera S in Irish Green.
Taycan unveiled, the first all-electric Porsche	4 Sep 2019	Built in Zuffenhausen beside the 911.
Porsche AG listed in Frankfurt	29 Sep 2022	Volkswagen keeps control of the voting shares.

The Porsche you can drive in Los Angeles

The thread through all of it is a rear-mounted flat engine in a small, light car, and the purest form of that idea on sale today is the 911. That is what we keep in Los Angeles: the 911 Cabriolet from $1,200/day and the 911 Targa at $749/day, both built in Zuffenhausen, both with the flat-six behind the rear axle that the 356 put there first. The Targa wears the brushed hoop and the Italian name; the Cabriolet folds its fabric roof away completely.

The mid-engined line that started with 356 No. 1 lives on in the 718s: the Boxster convertible at $286/day and the Cayman coupé at $329/day, with a turbocharged flat-four between the axles — the same flat layout with two cylinders fewer. All four are on Porsche rental in Los Angeles, each with its live calendar.

What it costs, and how it reaches you

The 911s take the top refundable deposit band and the two 718s the middle one; each comes back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, so it is higher on the flat-sixes, and your own full policy works instead if you have one. The live calendars and current rates are on the Porsche page, and where the price breaks on a longer booking is set out car by car.

Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the shuttle out to it, or $300 both ways VIP, where it is at the terminal when you walk out — half that for one direction.

The shuttle is about half an hour, and a 911 with a nose boot and two rear seats takes it in its stride; on a Boxster with bags, take the VIP terminal tier. Drivers are twenty-one and up with a licence held two years; under twenty-five there is a young-driver fee per day, and on the 911s it is the higher of the two we charge. Mileage, fuel and the rest are in the terms.