It has been widely known that the Porsche 356 is the first vehicle that wore the sports carmaker's badge. But in fact, Porsche's car design was brought to fruition much earlier.
The first car that was designed by the late Ferdinand Porsche is actually the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle, C.2 Phaeton model (or P1 for short), which dates back to 1898.
Many of us will think that a car of such significance would have been safely nested in the marque's museum. But in actual fact, it had been left untouched in a warehouse since 1902.
Designed and built by 22-year old Ferdinand Porsche, the P1 took to the streets of Vienna, Austria, on 26th June 1898. Young Ferdinand had engraved the code P1 (standing for Porsche, number one) onto all of the key components, thus giving the electric vehicle its unofficial name.
The vehicle has a rear-mounted electric drive that weighs 130kg and churns out 3bhp. The engine was also able to produce up to 5bhp for short stints in overdrive mode. With a keen passion for motorsport, Ferdinand entered the P1 in an all-electric car race with three passengers on board and covered a distance of 39km. More impressively, he won the race and crossed the finish line 18 minutes before his closest rival.
The electric car will be on permanent display at the Porsche museum, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.
