Ernst Fuhrmann

Dr Ernst Fuhrmann (Vienna 21 October 1918, Teufenbach 6 February 1995) was the chairman of Porsche AG between 1972 and 1980. He was a German citizen.

Fuhrmann’s attended primary school in Vienna before progressing to a Grammar school. Between 1936 and 1941 he attended a technical high school. During the war he undertook his military service before returning to civilian life. Already in 1947 he was working for Porsche, initially at the Gmünd facility in Austria, relocating subsequently to Stuttgart. In 1950, the year in which he married his wife Elfriede, he received his Doctorate of Machine Construction (des Maschinenbaus) for a study on valve trains in high-speed internal combustion engines.

In 1952/53 he provided significant input to the development of the 547 engine which became known as the Fuhrmann engine. The is a four-cylinder boxer engine with two overhead camshafts, driven by bevel gears, for each of the two cylinder banks.

In 1956 Fuhrmann left Porsche and took over responsibility for development with the car parts company Goetze, where in 1962 he joined the board of directors.

He returned to Porsche in 1971 initially as Technical Director, and between 1972 and 1980 as Chairman of the board at Porsche AG which by then had become a Share-holder owned company. In 1977 he was granted an Honorary Professorship by the Vienna University of Technology. Joachim Zahn having been similarly honoured in 1973 by the regional government of Baden-Württemberg, this meant that both of Stuttgart's leading auto-makers were now headed up by professors.

He was succeeded at Porsche by German-American Peter W. Schutz.

Gallery

• Fuhrmann engine.jpg

  Fuhrmann engine

• Fuhrmann engine2.jpg

  Fuhrmann engines

External links

• Video of Fuhrmann's 547 engine on YouTube

Sources and further reading

In German:

• Boschen/Barth: Das große Buch der Porsche-Typen. 2. Auflage, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-613-01284-7
• Österreich-Lexikon beim Projekt AEIOU