Porsche-Audi-Volkswagen????

[ginpunk]

Page 106 of my official 1975 911 S Owner's Manual/Maintenance Record states the following, "This warranty is issued by the Porsche Audi Division of Volkswagen of American, Inc."

Does anybody know what the Porsche-Audi-Volkswagen relationship was all about way back in 1975? I've always been puzzeld by this...

[epbrown]

Roland would likely be a better person to answer, but from what I've read the Porsche family has pretty much run all of the companies at one time or another, and maintains a large ownership in each. The family pulled out of Porsche itself to prevent accusations of conflict of interest since they had family members on the boards of all 3 companies at one time, but I think only the CEO of Volkswagen is still a Porsche family member. (The founder of Porsche was a bigwig in Volkswagen, most noted for designing the original Beetle for Hitler; it was because he sat on the board for VW that Dr. Porsche spent a few years in prison for war crimes after WWII, despite being primarily involved with his fledgling company at the time.)

This incestous relationship between the companies is how we got the 914 (Volkswagen Porsche) and 924 (Audi Porsche) and is what's led to endless internet arguments about what constitutes a real Porsche.

Some of this is likely wrong, so tons of people will jump in to correct me now

Emanuel

[ChrisBennet]

The Dr Porsche who started it all designed the VW bug and his first Porsche's used VW mechanicals. The Audi+Porsche 1975 era was a joint US marketing arrangement (not some merging of the the companies). Peich (sp) a Porsche family member is currently the president of VW.
-Chris

[Decolliber]

50% of Porsche's share capital is owned by the Porsche and Piech families

[jluetjen]

VW (including the Audi Division) is largely owned by the German government as well as publicly traded. Dr Porsche's original work for them was largely as an employee/contractor. The same applies to the Auto Union (Predicessor to Audi) V16 Grand Prix cars. Ferdinand Piach is currently the CEO of VW and earlier in his life he was the head of the "Calculations Department" as well as the competition department at Porsche. He is Dr. Ferdinand Porsche's grandson.

The Porsche's did not leave the Porsche Company management because of any conflict of interest with VW or Audi. The left because it was felt that they were blocking the advancement of valuable and compitent non-family members at the company (for example Dr. Furhmann who was to become the first Non-Porsche CEO). I'm sure that the interfamily squabbles (between Piach and Butzi for example) didn't help. This is actually a common issue with privately owned and managed companies. If there is no hope of getting a shot at the "Top Jobs", the best people will always leave for better opportunities.

Back in the '70's (Priar to Piach becoming CEO at VW) VW-Audi and Porsche formed a company in the US as you described. It was a separate legal entity from the two Parent companies, but entirely owned by them. It's purpose was to import and sell VW's, Porsches and Audi's into the US and (I believe) Canada. I don't think that this company still exists.

[David Bahr]

I apologize if this is too long.

Back in the 60s, Porsche was struggling to develop enough dealerships in the U.S. with the facilities, car inventories and parts inventories to deliver good customer service. VW (who owns Audi) wanted to differentiate Audis from VWs. So they developed a joint marketing company for the U.S. to market Porsches and Audis. This is why your Porsche dealer always sold Audis as well. This was dissolved, I think in 1989. I think the need to market the "shared" 914 in the U.S. contributed, as well.

However, the relationship between VW and Porsche runs much deeper than that. Ferdinand not only designed the Beetle but also designed and oversaw construction of the Beetle factory, and set up the production process. I'm guessing he had a significant financial stake in VW from the start, in addition to earning a royalty on each one produced. Of course, the 356 borrowed heavily from the VW parts bin (absolutely no disrespect!). There was the 914 project, with chassis produced by Karmann, which was owned by VW, and sold in the rest of the world as a VW-Porsche (again, no disrespect!). The 924 was a design project for VW that Porsche bought back, then farmed out production to Audi (owned by VW) as VW/Audi had excess production capacity. Audi built all the 924s, and also the 944 but with a Porsche-assembled engine (ditto; like them as well!).

My personal opinion is that Porsche still does a great deal of VW's engineering work. Remember, most of Porsche's revenues come not from selling cars but selling engineering services. My conspiracy theory is that Audi's dominating R8 prototype racer is actually Porsche-designed, if not in fact Porsche's aborted replacement to the 962. After all, if Piech controlled both Audi and Porsche, why compete with himself for Le Mans? Why, in fact, even bother to develop two different cars? I think the R8 is a re-badged Porsche. Which would explain why Porsche's engineers are too busy to build a new GT2 car.

VW owns Audi, Bugatti and SEAT and a bunch of other companies. Ferdinand Piech is the nephew of Ferry Porsche (Ferry's father Ferdinand started the company in 1931). Piech will step down 4/17/02 as chairman of VW. He is one of the top 10 richest individuals in the auto world, having major ownership in VW and Porsche. Ferry Porsche married Dorothy Piech. The Porsche and Piech families stepped down out of active management of the company in 1972 to avoid family power squabbles. Ferdinand Piech went to Audi and rose to Chairman before taking over all of VW/Audi.