The Porsche 911 was meant to be called the 901, until Peugeot objected
Porsche unveiled its new sports car at the 1963 Frankfurt show as the 901. Peugeot promptly protested: in France it held exclusive rights to three-digit car names with a zero in the middle. Rather than sell a different badge there, Porsche renamed the car worldwide. It became the 911.
The car grew out of efforts to replace the ageing 356. Ferdinand Porsche's grandson, known as Butzi, led the styling, while body chief Erwin Komenda handled the engineering of the chassis. Inside the factory the old number survived: engines and part numbers kept the 901 prefix, and 82 cars were built under that name before the badge changed. It went on sale as the 911 in 1964, with production starting that September.
The engine was the subject of real argument. An early design with an unusual camshaft layout was dropped after Ferry Porsche judged the extra camshafts not worth it. A young Ferdinand Piëch then won a second battle, persuading his uncle to adopt dry-sump lubrication, which let the engine sit lower for a better centre of gravity and suited racing. The result was a 2.0 litre, air-cooled, flat-six mounted at the very back.
That rear-heavy layout gave the car a tendency to oversteer at the limit, so for 1969 Porsche moved the rear wheels 57 millimetres backwards without lengthening the body. Two years earlier came the Targa, with a steel-clad roll bar, prompted by fears that American safety regulators might ban open convertibles. Its name, meaning plaque in Italian, honoured the Sicilian road race where Porsche won repeatedly.
The classic 911 was built until 1989 and is often called the most successful competition car ever, especially counting the 935 derivative that won Le Mans outright. Every successor has kept the name.
Source: Porsche 911 (classic)
