Dr. Ernst Fuhrmann (21 October 1918 – 6 February 1995) was chairman of Porsche AG between 1972 and 1980.
By 1947 he was working for Porsche, initially at the Gmünd facility in Austria, later moving to Stuttgart.
This air-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine has two overhead camshafts on each of the Volkswagen-style two cylinder banks, driven by bevel gears on horizontal shafts in the same concept as the pre-war Wolseley OHC valvetrain (which had a racing success in MG K3), and had a built-up Hirth-type crankshaft on roller bearings instead of a typical one-piece crankshaft on split bearing metal.
In 1956 Fuhrmann left Porsche and took over responsibility for development with the car parts company Goetze.
From 1972 to 1980 he served as chairman of the board at Porsche, which by then had become a joint-stock (German "Aktiengesellschaft" - (AG)) company.