Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

1 min read

The grandson of the company founder, also named Ferdinand, was also the designer of Porsche sports cars including the 904 which is regarded as the world's most beautiful race car.

Porsche left the family business in 1972 when it became a public company and started Porsche Design.

This design studio created numerous classic gentlemen's accessories such as watches, spectacles and writing implements that achieved global recognition. It also designed industrial products, household appliances and consumer durables for international clients.

Ferdinand Porsche retained a close lifelong association with the car company Porsche AG as a partner and member of the Supervisory Board. Even after stepping down from front-line business operations, he contributed to the design of Porsche's sports cars over many decades.

In 2005, he stood down from his Supervisory Board role in favour of his son Oliver and assumed the mantle of Honorary President of the Supervisory Board.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche will be buried in the family grave at Schuttgut in Zell am See, attended by his immediate family. An official funeral service will be held in Stuttgart at a later date.

Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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