Cue the music to Patty and Mildred Hill's best-selling hit and let's all sing along: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Porker etc." Yes, it's 90 years since Ferdy Porker, Anton Piech and Adolf Rosenberger set up business and it's 70 years since Mr Pump, Norm Hamilton, brought the first two Porkers to Australia.
Adolf Rosenberger, a wealthy but talented racer who was good enough to drive for the Mercedes factory, put up the money for Porsche to get going. Ferdy was a brilliant self-taught engineer who among other things invented the first all-wheel drive electric car (boo!), the first hybrid (boo!) and the sensational race-dominating Mercedes-Benz SSK (hooray and yours for about $10m today). Anton Piech was Ferdy's son-in-law.
Norm Hamilton was one of those Australians born near the turn of the 20th century who could do just about anything and did. While he started off as a brown cardigan-wearing bean counter at NAB, he was a petrol head underneath and studied at night to get his pilot's licence and served in the air force during the second big one.
A customer, Kelly and Lewis Pumps, suggested Norm head to Europe to look at high-pressure pumps for the Snowy scheme. Anyway, there's Norm driving around the continent looking at pumps from the windows of a big Oldsmobile 88 when a silver something flashes by, leaving Norm and the Olds embarrassed in the dust. Norm saw the car parked outside a Gasthaus, went in and found the driver. Richard von Frankenberg was not only a super factory race-winning driver, he set up the Porsche PR department and was a journalist.
After a few steins of Helles, Norm got Dicky to show him the way to Global Porker HQ to meet the boss and get the Porsche agency for Australia by chucking in the tooling costs to make some right-hand drive numbers. Now Ferdy had turned out 500 Porkers since he set up shop but none had the steering wheel on the right side except one for the famous Austrian one-armed racing driver Otto Mathe.
So, Norm used racing and rallying to get the brand going and his son Alan, who drove a Porsche by himself aged nine, turned it into a highly successful mega boutique business that was eventually bought by the factory.
Anyway, expect to pay $20m for a good used Porker like the 1970 Porsche 917K. You can put yourself into the most practical real sports car on the road, the 911 (drive it to the track, race and drive back home) for around $240k. As a longtime real (911) Porker owner, you buy one because of how it drives (perfectly) but more importantly how it makes you feel (better than sex as I remember it). Happy birthday Ferdy, Anton, Adolf, Norm and Allan.