History of the Porsche development center in Weissach.

Porsche celebrated the 50th anniversary of its research and development center in Weissach, Germany, with a special exhibit at the company's museum and a video explaining the history of the center.

As the video shows, founder Ferdinand Porsche ran an engineering consultancy decades before his son Ferry put the Porsche name on a production sports car. The business was originally run out of an office in Stuttgart, Germany, but with the launch of the sports car, Porsche began looking for a larger space and a location where a test track could be set up.

According to the video, Weissach was suggested by test driver Herbert Linge.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the R&D center took place on October 16, 1961. At that time, Porsche was already producing a number of sports cars, so it is perhaps not surprising that construction began on a skid pad. The center, called "Entwicklungszentrum Weissach" or "Development Center Weissach" in German, opened on October 1, 1971.

Following the construction of the skid pad, Porsche added two additional tracks for endurance testing: one was a high-speed loop known as the "Can-Am" track, after the Canadian American Challenge Cup racing series in which Porsche was then competing, and the other was a handling track. A rough road section was also included for endurance testing.

But by the time the facility opened, Porsche was already looking to expand. Additional land was purchased and construction of the expansion began in 1969; in 1971, Porsche moved its entire R&D department from nearby Zuffenhausen to Weissach, and in 1972, the design department moved there as well.

Thus Weissach became not only the development center for Porsche's road and racing cars, but also for customer projects such as the TAG turbo engine used by McLaren in Formula One, the Audi RS 2 Avant, and the Mercedes-Benz 500 E sports sedan. It became.

Porsche's motorsports department is also located near the Weissach R&D center, and Porsche sometimes offers the Weissach package on its hard-core performance models. Weissach is also home to Porsche's concept cars, as the design department known as Style Porsche is also located on the same site.