Mickl, an aerodynamics specialist, was one of the cleverest minds in the Porsche design office and was responsible for scientific analysis, stream-line physics and rectifying problems. Diploma engineer Mickl, born in 1885, joined the design office in 1931 as a calculations and aerodynamics engineer. In 1910, as an engineer with the naval air-force, he designed the first Austrian seaplane.

During the First World War he was in charge of the naval air corps design office and was manager of naval ship-building at the Vienna arsenal. He was responsible for the imperial and royal Austrian military air-force. On the basis of service to his country he became first-class naval engineer and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph.

After the end of the war until 1922 Mickl ran Austro Daimler’s Wiener Neustadt office and for the director of the time, Ferdinand Porsche, he designed the body structure and engine technology for the legendary Sascha racing car.

In 1922, as first-class chief engineer, Mickl joined the top ranks in the War Office of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and from 1923, as technical director, ran the first Yugoslavian aircraft and vehicle plant, Ikarus AB, in Novi Sad. Under his leadership one hundred and fifty aircraft were produced.

Coincidentally Mickl met Ferdinand Porsche in the year 1931 on a Viennese street called Wollzeile. Porsche made him an offer to join his newly-founded design office. Mickl also handed in his notice, leaving a high-level management position to follow Porsche’s reputation to Stuttgart.

Among others he designed the bodywork for the spectacular Auto Union racing car and patented his ideas for the high-speed record-holding racing car, the T80. A further area of interest for the Carinthian was the development of alternative energy sources, such as water wheels and wind turbines.

Josef Mickl retired in 1950. As impressive as his life was his curriculum vitae which he wrote down on the occasion of his retirement on the twenty-fifth of August 1950 and concluded it with the following words:
„Ich habe versucht, während eines von vielen Enttäuschungen aber auch von Erfolgen begleiteten Ingenieurlebens in mir eine glückliche Synthese zwischen Künstler, Schlossergesellen und Gelehrten zu erzielen. Ich versuchte, soweit es meine beschränkte Erkenntnisfähigkeit zuließ, die Großtaten der erlauchten Naturwissenschaftler und Mathematiker aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart zu verstehen und gebührend zu würdigen, um sich demütig zurechtzufinden in der geheimnis- und wunderträchtigen Welt zwischen Atomkern und Universum.“

“During my life as an engineer, which has been accompanied by many disappointments as well as many successes, I have tried to achieve a happy internal synthesis of artist, metal-work journeyman and scholar. I tried, as far as my restricted knowledge allowed, to understand and appreciate fully the great deeds of the illustrious scientists and mathematicians of the past and present, in order to humbly find my way through the magical and mysterious world between the atomic nucleus and the universe“