Porsche Mid-Engine History: From road to track, the mid-engine layout is a Porsche staple

摘要

THE CAYMAN is THE LATEST IN A LONG LINE of mid-engine Porsches that began with Porsche No, 1, the well-known roadster built in Gmund in 1948. This was the first car that carried the Porsche name and now spends happy days in the Porsche museum. Ferdinand Porsche Sr. was the man who showed the way to go when the 1934-1937 Grand Prix regulations were announced by the AIACR, the international body ruling motorsport at the time. This required the cars to weigh a maximum of 750 kg (1653 lb.) without tires, with no limit to the engine's displacement, to which he responded by designing the fabulous Auto-Union P-Wagen in which the supercharged 16-cylinder engine was installed behind the driver with the fuel tank located between them. This seemed a good way to save the weight of a propeller shaft and two universal joints, and simultaneously achieved a weight distribution little affected by the fuel consumption.