GMUND, AUSTRIA

We decided to take a short trip into Austria on the 15th of September and to the "birthplace" of the Porsche 356.  After WWII Ferd. Porsche went back to his home and starting building his sportscar following designs he had been working on for some time.  Gmund is a small village on the way to Italy and Venice where he bought an old sawmill and converted it into his auto factory, building one car at a time at a understandibly slow pace. He remained there until 1950, when he returned to Stuttgart with his production operation. The bottom photo is the little building today whereas the upper photo shows the factory in 1944. There is also a small museum with artifacts and memorabelia located in Gmund that we found quite unique. The weather was beautiful and the "history" lesson was enjoyable. We left after a couple of hours and headed an hour north to Zell Am Zee where the Porsche family has had their home for many years and then on to Kitzbuhel for the nite.