porsche agrees, in principle, to merger with VW
 

Well, I suppose they had a good run.

VW was Porsche from day 1 anyway.

I'm ok with the Cayenne and Panamera as long as they allow Porsche to remain independ . . . do'h!

new 914 please

Hahaha, yep, first thing i thought too. ;)

i can sorta see it. care to elaborate?

The VolksWagen was designed by Porsche, if it weren't for the War and the way it was cleaned up, most likely there would have been more "VolksPorsches" then there have been now (914-924-Cayenne)

+1000

i see. so the war aftermath forced the separation of the companies?

The war didn't cause any separation because there was no separation to cause.

Porsche and VW have always been 2 separate companies.

well , no, It wasn't his company, sr just was the lead designer for it... After the warthey threw Porsche in jail, and then nationalised VW.
by the time Porsche Sr was released, he had no job to go back to, and jr had started off a company called Porsche.

something like that, i'm sure it's on wiki somewhere

At one time, the 2 companies (Porsche and VW) jointly distributed their cars in the US through a different corporation (VW Porsche+Audi), and they have of course collaborated on many cars (914, etc.) but they have always been 2 separate companies.

After the war the FRENCH threw Porsche in jail - not the Germans.

to coerce him to design cars for them.

From my 82 Targa warranty booklethttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1248038812.jpg

Uma...Oprah...Porsche...Piech...Uma...Piech...Opra h...Porsche...

...Oh never mind....

technically that's just the dealer network/importer, not Porsche AG
that being said, it's similar in Belgium and Holland, the Belgian importer for VW , Audi and Porsche is the same, called d'Ieteren.. for Holland, it's PON.

Exactly. Porsche AG (the car manufacturer) has always been an independent company from VW.

Like I said earlier, they did collaborate with VW on things, including distributing the cars in the US for a while (they stopped doing that a while ago). That's why those cards say that.

my point was not that they were one and the same legal entity historically, my point was that historically they have the same origin: Hitler got Ferdinand Porsche to develop the Volkswagen car... History of either company traces back to that exact same point in time...
Hence both companies started off with aircooled engines, with rear wheel drive, since that was how Ferdinand Porsche figured it made the most sense to build a car.
The 2 only got seperated, due to the aftermath of WW2.

VW would not have existed in it's current form if it weren't for Ferdinand Porsche.
Neither would PAG have been what it is now if it weren't for Ferdinand Porsche.