Porsche 911 60 Years

Harm Lagaaij was born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1946 but spent his entire youth far from Europe. Between 1947 and 1952 he lived in Ecuador and Venezuela, then attended English-language grade school in Brunei through 1960. He returned to the Netherlands for high school and then studied at the IVA (Institute for Automobiles) at Driebergen, Netherlands, graduating in 1968.               He worked at Olyslager and then Simca before joining Porsche in September 1971. He had designed the 924 by the time he left in mid-1977. Broadening his perspectives, he spent eight years as Advanced Design Studio Manager at Ford in Cologne, then three more as chief designer at BMW Technik.               Lagaaij returned to Porsche as Director of Design in January 1989, where he encouraged change, fresh thinking, and experimentation. He set the style for Porsche’s extraordinary product expansion, from the 993, 996, Boxster, Cayman, Cayenne, Carrera GT, through the 997. He retired from Porsche in September 2004.               In 2013, Lagaaij received the “Officer in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau,” the Netherlands equivalent of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Since 2021 he has been an independent automotive design consultant.