Ferdinand Porsche Birth House

In 1875, the house at Tanvaldská street 38 in Vratislavice saw the birth of Ferdinand Porsche, who rose to fame as an automobile designer and creator of the first Volkswagen car called the Beetle. The residential building was simultaneously used by Ferdinand’s father Anton Porsche as a tinsmith workshop. It was here that Ferdinand Porsche spent his childhood and youth, training as a tinsmith at the family firm, creating his first designs and carrying out experiments with electricity that ultimately led to wiring the whole building.

Ferdinand Porsche lived in the house until 1893 when he relocated to Vienna. However, he would often return to Vratislavice to visit his parents, and in 1902, he introduced his bride-to-be, Aloisia Kaes, to them here. The young couple made the journey from Vienna to Vratislavice in a Lohner-Porsche Mixte with a petrol/electric hybrid drive that Ferdinand Porsche designed himself.