The first time the public came into contact with a model of the Porsche 356 was at the showroom in Geneva in 1949 where it obtained immediate success, as was obvious. However, in order to understand the origins of this project we have to necessarily go back in the years, as a matter of fact the history of the 356 is undeniably tied to the difficult story of the Porsche family and, not surprisingly, it was the first car to have the Porsche trademark engraved on the bonnet. In spite of its soft and graceful shape, the 356 was created among thousands of ups and downs, as we will see later on, and its development had to endure the hard standstill caused by the Second World War.
Ferdinand Porsche was born in Bohemia in 1875. The son of a humble tinsmith, he soon developed a strong interest in the study of electricity. His liking of this subject took him to Vienna where in 1898 he managed to enter into Jakob Lohner’s factory of electric automobiles. This was the first step of a long and unique career in the automobile field with over three hundred and eighty industrial projects to his credit.
Porsche worked as the technical manager at Austro-Daimler, at the German Daimler where he designed the Mercedes SS e SSK and eventually at the Austrian Steyr. This continuous wandering through various factories, which in any case once he had gone finished the projects for which he had created the necessary conditions, could not continue and in 1929 he decided to found a private planning-and-design studio in his name. This enabled him to draw up contracts with manufacturing houses and at the same to maintain a certain amount of independence.  There ensued during these years the sports victories with the world-famous 16-cylinder racing cars, with a central engine  and torsion bar which the studio planned and designed for the Auto Union group. Porsche had always given importance to sports competitions, he himself had won the "Prinz Heinrich" cup in 1909 in an Austro-Daimler, and had understood that apart from being valid tests for materials and solutions, races were also an excellent publicity means.
In this planner-and-designer’s mind however there was a project that was far beyond competitions: that being a small car with a low purchasing price and reduced handling costs which would have motorized Germany.
Only with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler was this project possible and in 1938 "Volkswagen", literally the people’s car, became a reality. Unfortunately the breakout of the Second World War and Hitler’s consequent downfall blocked the startup of the production process of the Beetle and of the development of a sports car prototype called  "Typ 60K10". This model, based on Volkswagen mechanics and destined for the Berlin-Rome rally in 1939, was the first step towards the 356 project.
Once the war had ended and his father Ferdinand had been freed from French imprisonment, Ferry Porsche, who was born in 1909 and who had always collaborated in his father’s projects, brought together all the most valid collaborators of Studio Porsche in the Austrian town of Gmünd to create a sports coupé bearing his name. Thus the project 356 came about, a small sports car based on the mechanics of the Beetle which was inspired by the Typ 60K10.