[Dottore]

There have been some really interesting articles in the German press this week about Porsche's future. Most interesting perhaps was in interview in Der Stern with both Ferdinand Piech and Wolfgang Porsche.

Now these two guys are cousins (both grandsons of Ferdinand Porsche), and both from arguably the two wealthiest families in Germany. Porsche sits on The Supervisory Board at Porsche, and Piech sits on the Sup. Board at VW - and is probably the most influential guy at VW.

Highlights of the interview:

-Porsche has been given the green light to acquire a majority stake in VW, and will raise it's shareholding to 51% during the course of this year.

-Once Porsche has 51% it will be the world 4th largest car maker after Toyota, GM and Ford. Porsche's clear target is to become the worlds largest carmaker. Toyota is the target. Both guys stated this repeatedly.

-This is really a family/dynasty thing as much as a business thing. There's been rift of sorts between the Porsche and Piech families for some time, and the acquisition of VW by Porsche is seen as an attempt to bring the two families closer together into the world's predominant automaker.

-Porsche will increasingly be just a brand. The new small Porsche SUV for example, if it goes ahead, will be entirely built from Audi parts. (Through it's 51% stake in VW, Porsche will effectively own Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Scania, etc etc - and will have access to all of these parts.) Zuffenhausen engineered Porsches will become increasingly rare. (No more black Audi wagon jokes at Porsche meets?)

-Piech commented that the only vehicle still missing from the vast range under the (soon to be) Porsche umbrella, is a high end large displacement motorcycle, and that he is making this his next project. (He was very pis_ed, at having missed out on buying Ducati the late 1980's)