The Porsche 114 was a 1938 proposed design for a

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

V10 engine A V10 engine is a ten-cylinder piston engine where two banks of five cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V10 engines are much less common than V8 and V12 engines. Several V10 diesel engines have been prod ...

History

After designing the

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

for the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

government's KDF program

Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian-German automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first gasoline–electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volksw ...

considered building a sports car version of the VW. Internally known as the Porsche Type 64 this car would feature an

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the framework of ...

body, a 1.5L version of the Volkswagen's original 1.0L engine, and a top speed of at least 160 km/h (100 mph). Originally the car was to use a large number of VW parts, but due to the intricacies of then German law it was not legal to sell government made parts to a private company.

Design

By 1938 Ferdinand had given up trying to arrange for a supply of VW parts for the Type 64. Ferdinand and his son

Ferry Porsche Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche (19 September 1909 – 27 March 1998), mainly known as Ferry Porsche, was an Austrian-German technical automobile designer and automaker-entrepreneur. He operated Porsche AG in Stuttgart, Germany. His fathe ...

decided to redesign the car from the ground up to be built internally by Porsche. This would have been the first car actually built by Porsche themselves. Known as the Type 114, or F-Wagen, a sort of

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsP-Wagen, it was a significant departure from the Type 64. Although it never reached the prototype stage the design drawings were all but completed and included a novel

water cooled Cooling tower and water discharge of a nuclear power plant Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components and industrial equipment. Evaporative cooling using water is often more efficient than air cooling. Water is inexpensive and non ...

72 BHP V10 twin camshaft engine in a true mid engine layout, as opposed to the VW's rear engine layout. Suspension was by

trailing arm A (semi) trailing-arm suspension, sometimes referred to as (semi) trailing-link is a vehicle axle or wheel suspension design in which one or more horizontal arms (or "links"), perpendicular to and forward of the axle, are connecting the axle or ...

s in front and

swing axle A swing axle is a simple type of independent (rear wheel) suspension designed and patented by Edmund Rumpler in 1903. This was a revolutionary invention in automotive suspension, allowing driven (powered) wheels to follow uneven road surfaces ...

s in the rear, with drum brakes at all four corners. The body was aluminum and resembled a lower, stretched, and streamlined VW. Porsche had hopes of producing this car, but international tensions and a poor

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

lead to its cancellation. Porsche did manage to salvage part of its investment by selling the

transaxle A transaxle is a single mechanical device which combines the functions of an automobile's transmission, axle, and differential into one integrated assembly. It can be produced in both manual and automatic versions. Engine and drive at the s ...

design to

Legacy

The Porsche Type 114 never came to be, but it lived on in a number of Porsche cars. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Ferry Porsche began to build sports cars based on the VW, and eventually began production of the

Porsche 356 The Porsche 356 is a sports car that was first produced by Austrian company Porsche Salzburg, Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH (1948–1949), and then by German company Porsche, Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH (1950–1965). It was Porsche's first ...

which in concept was identical to the Type 64. Also

aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

research for the 114 led to a series of bodies produced by Porsche for

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

and

land speed record The land speed record (or absolute land speed record) is the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C ("Special Vehicles") flying start regula ...

cars, such as the Type 60K10, a highly modified VW Beetle. While the type 114 was in the end little more than a design study it had a large impact on the future course of Porsche and the cars that would make the company a dominant force in the automotive world.

References

External links

Information from The Autobahn (website)
{{Porsche vehicles 114 pt:Porsche 114