Dr. Ernst Fuhrmann (21 October 1918 – 6 February 1995) was chairman of

Porsche AG Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company is ...

between 1972 and 1980. He was a German citizen. Fuhrmann attended primary school in Vienna before progressing to a

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. Between 1936 and 1941 he attended a technical university. During the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

he undertook his military service before returning to civilian life. By 1947 he was working for Porsche, initially at the Gmünd facility in Austria, later moving to

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

. In 1950 he married his wife Elfriede. That same year he received his Doctorate of Mechanical Engineering for a study of

valvetrain A valvetrain or valve train is a mechanical system that controls the operation of the intake and exhaust valves in an internal combustion engine. The intake valves control the flow of air/fuel mixture (or air alone for direct-injected engines) ...

s in high-speed

internal combustion engines An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combust ...

. In 1952/53 he provided significant input to the development of the Porsche Type 547 engine, which became known as the "Fuhrmann engine". This four-cylinder

boxer engine A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, wh ...

has two overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, driven by

bevel gears Bevel gears are gears where the axes of the two shafts intersect and the tooth-bearing faces of the gears themselves are conically shaped. Bevel gears are most often mounted on shafts that are 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work at oth ...

, and a built-up

Hirth Hirth Engines GmbH is an engine manufacturer based in Benningen, Germany. It is currently a part of the UMS Aero Group. Hirth began manufacturing aero engines in the 1920s, was taken over by Heinkel in WWII to develop the Heinkel-Hirth jet en ...

-type crankshaft. In 1956 Fuhrmann left Porsche and took over responsibility for development with the car parts company Goetze. In 1962 he was appointed to the board of directors. Fuhrmann returned to Porsche in 1971 as Technical Director. From 1972 to 1980 he served as Chairman of the board at Porsche, which by then had become a

joint-stock A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholders are ...

(German "Aktiengesellschaft" - (AG)) company. In 1977 he was granted an Honorary Professorship by the

Vienna University of Technology TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

. He was succeeded at Porsche by German-American

Peter W. Schutz Peter Werner Schutz (April 20, 1930 – October 29, 2017) was the president and CEO of Porsche between 1981 and 1987, a time in which the company greatly expanded sales, primarily in the United States. He was a motivational speaker and co-foun ...

Gallery

Image:Fuhrmann_engine.jpg, Fuhrmann engine Image:Fuhrmann_engine2.jpg, Fuhrmann engines

External links

Sources and further reading

In German: * Boschen/Barth: Das große Buch der Porsche-Typen. 2. Auflage, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, * Österreich-Lexikon beim Projekt AEIOU 1918 births 1995 deaths Porsche people Businesspeople from Stuttgart Businesspeople from Vienna German businesspeople in transport German military personnel of World War II Austrian emigrants to Germany {{germany-business-bio-stub