Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche car company. He is best known for creating the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner-Porsche), the Volkswagen Beetle, the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, several other important developments and Porsche automobiles. An important contributor to the German war effort during World War II, Porsche was involved in the production of advanced tanks such as the VK 4501 (P), Tiger I, Tiger II, Elefant, and Panzer VIII Maus, as well as other weapon systems, including the V-1 flying bomb. Porsche was a member of the
Panzer ace Smelser and Edward Davies. The most famous German "Panzer ace", Michael Wittmann, is credited by Kurowski as having destroyed 60 tanks and nearly as many anti-tank guns in the course of a few days near Kiev in November 1943. According to historian Steven Zaloga, Wittman was credited with about 135 tanks destroyed – although 120 of those were made on the Eastern Front from a virtually impregnable Tiger tank. After the war, Wittmann gained a cult status among admirers of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and tank warfare. Kurowski's book also describes the actions of "Panzer ace" Franz Bäke in the