At the age of 18 Ferry Porsche received a "regular" driver's licence and was now able to ride his own motorcycle, a 500-cc BMW. The luring temptation of his two-wheeler soon gave way, however, to another experience destined to last for the rest of his life: In September 1927 he fell in love with Dorothea Reitz, a young lady from Stuttgart he married in 1935 and lived with happily ever after until her death in 1985. In the course of time they became the proud parents of four sons - Ferdinand Alexander (born 1935), Gerhard (born 1938), Hans-Peter (born 1940) and Wolfgang (born 1943), who, as principal partners of today's Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, continue the lifetime achievement of Ferry Porsche up to the present day.
After taking his "Mittlere Reife", the equivalent of GCSE exams, Ferry Porsche knew that one day he would follow in his father's footsteps as an automotive constructor and engineer: "The more I learnt about life, the more I admired the brilliant example my father gave me time and again." After one year of practical training with Robert Bosch AG he followed his father to Austria, after the latter had left Daimler-Benz AG and had become the Chief Engineer of Steyr-Werke AG in early 1929. In preparation of his technical studies, Ferry Porsche attended a private school in Vienna, although soon he spent more time in his father's engineering office and workshops than he did at school for his theoretical training.
When Ferdinand Porsche left Steyr-Werke again in 1930 to work independently in his own business as a self-supporting constructor, his son decided to join his father for practical training instead of studying at some kind of college or university.
1931: the Porsche Engineering Office
"Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH - Konstruktion und Beratung fr Motoren- und Fahrzeugbau" (Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH - Construction and Consultancy for Engines and Vehicles) was entered in the Stuttgart Trade Register on 25 April 1931. The team of initially twelve specialists led by Ferdinand Porsche focused on the full range of automotive technology, Porsche developing a new mid-range saloon for Wanderer, the German car maker based in Chemnitz, right from the start in their very first year. The next projects were a pendulum axle developed for Horch-Werke in Zwickau and an air-cooled five-cylinder radial engine developed on behalf of Phnomen-Werke in Zittau for use in trucks. An important milestone in the story of the young company was the torsion-bar suspension registered for a patent on 10 August 1931 and to be featured as state-of-the-art technology in international automotive construction for many decades.
As the youngest member of the Engineering Office, Ferry Porsche first trained in the Construction and Testing Departments. His teacher was Diplom-Ingenieur Walter Boxan who successfully made him acquainted with the theoretical and mathematical principles of automotive engineering. Soon 21-year-old Ferry was working independently on his own projects, such as improving the steering on the two-litre Wanderer. And this experience indeed proved to be surprisingly successful, his steering design being further developed and later used in both the Auto-Union racing cars and for the Volkswagen. From the beginning Ferry Porsche was involved in all projects and developments conducted by his father's Engineering Office, taking over increasing responsibility in the process and, as of 1932, coordinating the engineers' work, supervising the testing processes and, together with his father, maintaining relationships with the Company's customers.