Total 911 remembers the irrepressible Herbert Linge, whose decades-long Porsche career left an indelible mark on the company and its followers right around the globe

Written by Kieron Fennelly

Herbert Linge’s amazingly varied Porsche career would be unimaginable today. From wartime apprentice to manager of Weissach, via the workshop, development testing, racing and managing Porsche in the US and Europe, and leading a safety crusade in Formula 1.

Born in Weissach, where he lived all his life, Herbert was a bright boy and wanted to continue in school. However, his father Karl, who worked in a foundry in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, couldn’t afford to pay for it. Reluctantly, at 14 Herbert left school and at his father’s suggestion sought work at a company in a smart new building on Zuffenhausen’s Schwieberdinger Straße, which was offering apprenticeships: Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. It was the beginning of a connection that lasted 80 years.

A year later in spring 1944, Allied bombing forced Porsche to move out of Stuttgart to the relative remoteness of Gmünd in lower Austria, but Herbert was fortunate to continue his Porsche-sponsored studies until 1945 in the Maschinenbauschule in Esslingen. After hostilities ended the American Zone, into which Stuttgart fell under Allied occupation, both work and food was offered, but Linge followed another, older Porsche employee – Hans Klauser – to Baden-Baden in the French Zone where Dr Porsche was. The pair preferred to work for Dr Porsche rather than the Americans even if, as rumour had it, the French wanted him to build Renaults.

However, a change of government in Paris resulted in the imprisonment of Porsche father and son and Anton Piëch. Yet Hans and Herbert understood that even if the French project were doomed as it seemed, the enterprise at Gmünd was functioning and Porsche intended to return to Stuttgart as soon as conditions allowed. In the meantime, the French authorities in Baden-Baden kept both mechanics busy maintaining their Jeeps and their fleet of 4x4 VW Kübelwagens. By 1948, Linge had earned enough to treat himself to a 15-year-old 350cc Royal Enfield motorcycle and this enabled him to stay in closer touch with his family in Weissach. As soon as Porsche returned to Stuttgart, Linge was ready. He would be the first of those original wartime apprentices to re-join the firm.