Missing For 112 Years, First Porsche Is Found In Warehouse
Even the famed German automaker concedes that it "may resemble an old horse-drawn carriage."
But the recently rediscovered "first Porsche in the world" — dubbed the P1 — was a technological marvel for its time. It "included a compact electric drive weighing 286 pounds," writes the automotive news site Jalopnik, and could chug along at 22 mph.
The car was found, according to Porsche, in an Austrian warehouse where it had apparently been left untouched since 1902.
As for the car's history, according to Porsche:
"The owner of 'K.K. Hofwagenfabrik Jacob Lohner & Comp.' had a wide range of interests, and in the face of declining sales of his luxurious carriages had come to the logical conclusion that the age of the horse and carriage was coming to an end. ... He came to the decision that he needed to start manufacturing petrol and electric vehicles. ...
"The result of Ferdinand Porsche's vision, the 'Egger-Lohner C.2 electric vehicle,' rolled onto the streets of Vienna for the first time on June 26, 1898, and Ferdinand Porsche made sure that he would take credit for the vehicle's design in a most unusual manner: He engraved the code 'P1' (P for Porsche, number 1) onto all of the key components, thus giving the vehicle its unofficial name."