Zuffenhausen has given a great deal of hype around the Porsche purchase of Volkswagen by stating “we need to protect our suppliers” and “our aim is to create one of the strongest and most innovative automobile alliances in the world”. The Porsche purchase, however, has everything to do with Ferdinand Piech’s obsession with bringing the two independent parts of what he perceives as the Porsche family companies together. You will remember that Piech is the grandson of Dr Ferdinand Porsche, who created the Beetle – and thus Volkswagen and the city of Wolfsburg – for Adolf Hitler.After WW2, Porsche’s son Ferry set up the Porsche sports car company, using VW mechanicals as a basis. As an engineer Ferdinand Piech first worked for Porsche on a new flat-6 engine for what became the 911. After it was decided by his mother Louisa Piech and uncle Ferry that no members of the by then feuding family should work for the sports car company, Piech moved across to Audi in the early 1970s.
Eventually, Piech rose to be head of R&D and later chairman of Audi, although he maintained his links with Porsche by serving on the advisory board. From Audi he moved to became CEO of the Volkswagen group and upon retirement in 2002, assumed the chairmanship of the VW advisory board.Remember, too, that it was Piech, as chairman of the Porsche board in the early ’90s, who selected Wendelin Wiedeking, to run Porsche. It was an inspired decision, Wiedeking introduced Toyota production methods to the company and helped craft the Boxster/911 product plan that effectively saved the company after the disastrous loses and plunging sales of the early ’90s.From early in the 21st century, Piech, after his mother’s death the largest single family shareholder in Porsche, and Wiedeking deliberately constructed a plan to combine the two groups under the Porsche banner.That Porsche, which made 100,000 cars in 2007 can buy the VW Group, builders of lmost six million vehicles last year, tells you everything you need to know about Porsche’s huge profit margins. Wiedeking is proud to claim they are the easily biggest in the industry.Read the news story here.
