Porsche Stops the Line
The “bank with a subsidiary that makes cars,” a.k.a. Porsche, had to stop production in their car subsidiary Zuffenhausen for a day. There is less demand for the 911s. The hedge funds strike back and go on buyer strike. Until end of January, 7 additional no-work days are planned, Das Autohaus learned.
2,500 workers are affected. 1,280 fewer 911s will be built. Tomorrow, at the press conference, Porsche will most likely announce that in their 2008/2009 fiscal, they will not reach the 98,652 cars built in the previous fiscal year.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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See guys (pic), those cars are indeed "hand-crafted"
Do any of you guys own or have driven 911s? Antone: For the price of a Toyota, there is a nice 964, 3.2 Carrera, or SC out there with your name on it. Just ask a local Porsche Club member to help you out. Porschespeed: "the old guard" tried to kill the 911 in the 1970's with the 928. The customers killed the 928 and forced Porsche to improve the 911. In an auto world where differences have diminished among cars, a Porsche is fun to drive because it is different. If you believe it is obsolete, then there are plenty of other fine front or mid-engine cars out there to choose from.
pgreenberg, I have driven just about every iteration of the 911 theme, including the force-fed models. One and two turbochargers. I owned a shop for a few years. And have some friends with decent disposable incomes. 911s are a maintanence nightmare (but good for the shop bottom line). 928s, 944s, 951s, Peppers, require far less M&R per mile driven. Don't have the article handy, but even in print, Porsche spokesfolks have admittted years ago that the 911 is very expensive to keep viable - lousy powerplant for emmissions (and performance), lousy location of said plant for safety testing. Most important, it's sales figures have not justified it's existance for a long, long time. If today is like most others, just driving around I'll see a few Cayennes, a few Boxters, a Cayman or two, and a couple of 944s. Maybe one 911. Maybe. Odds are it'll have a dealer plate on it. 928 was a tough sell internally from jump street. The first in-house Porsche. Porsche isn't GM, where the problem children that understand product get sent to the skunkworks to create the C6 Vette off budget. Porsche is a tight little company and the internal 911 cult made sure that Cayman is still underpowered to this minute. Why? Because it would show that the emporer 911 is nekkid as a jaybird. If you like the looks of the 911, great. But the layout sucks and if you want a fast car that doesn't require Cray-1 levels of computing to keep it on the road, upgrade a Boxter/Cayman.