Ernst Fuhrmann

Ernst Fuhrmann (1918 to 1995) was an engineer born in Austria-Hungary who died a German citizen and who led Porsche as chairman of the board from 1972 to 1980. Educated in Vienna, he took a doctorate at TU Wien in 1950 on valvetrains in high-speed internal combustion engines and was working for Porsche by 1947. In the early 1950s he gave significant input to the Type 547 racing engine, an air-cooled four-cylinder boxer with two overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, which became known as the Fuhrmann engine and was first used in the 550. He left in 1956 to work at the parts maker Goetze, returned to Porsche in 1971 as technical director and became chairman in 1972. After Porsche's first loss-making year in 1980 he was removed and succeeded by Peter W. Schutz.