Professor Ferdinand Porsche started a development company in Stuttgart in 1931, and its works included Tank design and the VW Beetle. An aluminium racer, sometimes known as the 'Porsche 64' was raced in 1939 based on VW Beetle mechanics. But the first car bearing the 'Porsche' name was the 356 that was first produced in hand built numbers in 1948 and designed by Porche's son Ferdinand "Ferry" Porsche. Ferdinand expected the 356 to sell about 500 copies, but when production ended in 1965 it had sold more than 76,000. Lightweight, aerodynamics, and a powerful engine made the 356 good at racing and Porsche developed many racers from this, ultimately to win Le Mans several times. Porsche's greatest product was exhibited in 1963 as the boxer six Porsche 911, and even though this car almost died in the 1980s to be replaced by the luxury 928, the 911 was further developed from 1984-1994 and was then replaced by a series of 911s which looked almost the same. Collaborations with VW/Audi resulted in the VW 914 and VW 916 cars and the then the Porsche 924. Porsche had astonished the world by going front-engined rear wheel drive with the 928 in 1977, and continued this recipe for the 924, 944 and 968, but subsequent models have returned to the rear-engined format. Porsche had a financial stake in VW and increased this until by 2008 it held 35per cent of the voting rights within VW, and this increased to over 50per cent, but the collapse of world financial markets found Porsche's stake to be founded on credit, and the tables turned so that Porsche fell under the umbrella of the Volkswagen-Audi Group in 2009.