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My impression from multiple factory tours in both Stuttgart and Lipzig over the years and 993 ownership, is the Japan influence hit the 993 with the “how” on the production line (just in time parts and how that in turn that impacts / organizes the assembly flow / speed ‘ reduces labor costs ‘ improve production numbers), but had little / no impact on the 993 design. The design impact (to simplify production) and possibly quality impacts shows up in the 996/Boxster design that improved speed of assembly and commonality while parts sharing reducing parts costs.
Dropping sales of 968/928 was clear, but I suspect the added costs of those older production lines was also a data point coming out of the Japan input and any future costs to “996/Boxster” them was just more reasons to not continue.
Recall in the US at least for one model year, you could have any Porsche you wanted as long as it was a 993. Scary times in Stuttgart in the mid 90s.
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