It was an early example of the aerodynamic / rounded designs that came somewhat in vogue in the 1930s, developed concurrently with Mercedes-Benz's 120H, and ahead of Tatra's second V570 prototype, and DKW's F2-based, one-off rear-engined streamline prototype — both in 1933.^[3] In production cars the style was typified by the 1934 Chrysler and DeSoto Airflow, Toyota's AA copy of these (1936), and the eventual "People's car", the 1938 KdF-Wagen aka the Volkswagen Type 1 or Beetle.
Contemporaneous prototypes with a more extreme focus on aerodynamics were the 1933 Dymaxion car and Karl Schlör's Schlörwagen, developed from 1936 to 1939.^[4]

The vehicle has a single, U-profile, central beam frame as opposed to the VW Beetle's central tube platform chassis.^[1] The car's body (made by Reutter) has – for its time period – a reasonably aerodynamic shape with covered rear wheel arches.^[5] Both the front, and the rear axles are leaf sprung and feature a single, transverse leaf spring each. Porsche used a worm-gear steering box and four hydraulic drum brakes on the Type 12. The car already has the VW Beetle-typical drivetrain design with a combined rear gearbox differential unit with the engine directly flanged to its rear end, which means that, the rear axle is a swing axle, located in between the gearbox, and the engine. This was technically feasible because the engine was rather short in length.^[1] Unlike the VW Beetle, the Porsche Type 12 has a wet single disc clutch.^[5]

The engine is a five-cylinder radial Zündapp-made Otto (spark ignition) engine, rather than the flat four Porsche preferred.^[2] The five-cylinder Zündapp engine is water-cooled, and has a regular water pump. The camshaft is of the cam drum variety (i. e. a very short camshaft) and actuates two overhead valves per cylinder. With its 70 by 62 mm bore and stroke, the engine displaces 1,193 cm³ (72.8 in³). It has a compression of ε=5.3, a single Zenith 26 mm carburettor, and produces 26 PS (19 kW) at 3200/min. The car's top speed is 80 km/h (50 mph).^[5]