Ferdinand Porsche

Born in 1875, Porsche came up through the turn-of-the-century auto industry and built the first gasoline-electric hybrid, the Lohner-Porsche, before most people owned a car. He designed the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK and the Auto Union racing cars that dominated Grand Prix circuits. In the 1930s he created the Volkswagen Beetle under contract from the Nazi state, then joined the party and became an honorary SS officer. During World War II he engineered advanced tanks — the Elefant self-propelled gun, the VK 45.01, the 188-ton Maus — and contributed to the V-1 flying bomb program, earning the War Mer…