Ferry Porsche always endeavoured to optimise his company not only in technical terms, but also in social matters. Being an entrepreneur and a human being with a great social commitment at the same time was not a contradiction in terms in his eyes, but rather a logical conclusion, perhaps even the foundation for all his success. He therefore introduced a corporate old-age pension scheme as early as in 1956, the Porsche Foundation also being established to help all employees suffering economic need for reasons beyond their own fault.
In 1960 the Company transformed all blue collar workers from wage-earners employed on an hourly basis to monthly wage-earners, thus raising them to the same status as the salaried personnel. Fringe benefits such as a Christmas bonus or a vacation allowance were also introduced much earlier by Porsche (without any legal or industrial obligation to do so) than in the automotive industry as a whole. So Ferry Porsche was also a pioneer in the introduction and payment of such social benefits.
Setting the Stage for the Future}
In the early `70s Ferry Porsche once again set the long-term stage for the company he had now been running for two decades. Following lengthy discussions regarding his successor in the top management of the Company, the Porsche and Pich families decided in 1971 to no longer fill any top operating positions in the Company with members of the two families. And entering the year 1972, the principal partners of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche KG decided to turn the limited partnership into a joint-stock corporation as of 1 August 1972.
Ferry Porsche readily accepted this unanimous decision by the families and retired from active management, from now on accompanying the development of the Company in his new position as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, an office he held until 1990 when his son Ferdinand Alexander took over. Subsequently acting as the Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Ferry Porsche was then to actively accompany the development of the Company for the rest of his life.
Through his far-sighted vision as an entrepreneur and engineer, Ferry Porsche left a lasting stamp on the company time and again. And he was indeed all too happy to take up the innovative ideas of his engineers on many occasions, the company venturing beyond the beaten track - not always to the pleasure of some of the "die-hard customers" - with models such as the 924, 944, and 928. Still, these models also made a very significant contribution to the success of the company, with every other Porsche built in the `80s being such a front-engined sports car.
Another issue always of great interest to Ferry Porsche was the future of the automobile, with the opinion he voiced in 1979 now more important than ever before: "Fuel consumption will be a particularly significant factor in future. The amount of fuel consumed by a motor vehicle will also depend on its weight and air resistance. And the sports car is at an advantage on both of these points." So he always believed that "we must do things in our cars that help to reduce fuel consumption. And this is where we benefit from the developments we have already made in motorsport, such as the turbocharger. We can use the turbocharger not just to increase engine power, but also to improve the efficiency of the engine, reducing fuel consumption to a minimum in the process."
In the last years of his life Ferry Porsche had to experience how his company entered a severe crisis threatening its very existence. But even when the Porsche company was seen as the candidate for a possible takeover, Ferry Porsche still emphasised his unflinching will to remain independent. And experiencing the economic turnaround led by Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking, he was able to see his lifetime achievement returning to the road of ongoing success.