Erwin Komenda
(1904-66)
Austrian car body designer Komenda worked for Ferdinand Porsche and was responsible for the appearance of the original Volkswagen and many Porsche sports car designs from the late 1940s onwards. Komenda began work as a car body designer in 1926 at the Steyrer factories, meeting Ferdinand Porsche when the latter became a technical director there in 1929. In the same year Komenda took up the post of chief designer of body styling at Daimler-Benz where he remained until 1931, when he moved to Porsche's Stuttgart car body construction department as chief engineer in charge. He worked closely with Josef Mickl on the Auto Union and Cisitalia Grand Prix racing cars. He also worked on the body design of the Volkswagen, drawing upon contemporary interest in aerodynamics, though it did not go into production until after the Second World War. In essence, Komenda's design was in production for four decades. In the late 1940s Ferdinand Porsche and Komenda worked on the design of the first Porsche sports car, the Type 356 of 1949. He worked on a number of other models including the 550 Spyder, his last contribution being the Porsche 911.
