Todd

Was the 944 ever hand made? If not, when did Porsche stop hand making cars? Are the engines still hand made?

(By hand made I mean a single person overseeing the assembly, kinda of put together one at a time. not "hand made production line" vs "robot"

Skwerl

Not really knowing the answer, I would assume that 944s were never handmade, because of their high production numbers. Certainly the 356s, and early 911s, but after that I would guess that Porsche's relative popularity (compared to, say, Ferrari and Lamborghini) would have made hand-making somewhat ineffecient and unprofitable.

The preceding was entirely a WAG.

Thaddeus

If you look at the Virtual factory tour at the US Porsche site, it kind of looks like the engines are hand assembled now. Since a line approach is less likely to have been used in the past, I'd bet the 944 engines were hand assembled..

Still, just another WAG.

Thaddeus

adrial

My friend recently visited the Porsche Factory...
The only machine present in the factory is the machine that installs the windshield glass (and maybe rear window glass..). The cars move along an assembly line to each different station. At each station there's a group of people that always do the same thing...spends something like 30 seconds at a station i think...maybe longer...
So the 996's are handmade (this trip was over the summer of 2001).

That's not to say that each piece is hand made, but the final pieces are put together by people...

deni durrell

I'm sure you guys have seen this link. It may/may not shed light to the question. Wish I could translate the article but it's a .jpg and i can't process it thru babelfish...

Dave

I'm sure this is of little help, how cars are built in Stutgart may or may not be the same as how they are built in Neckarsulm (SP?)

Damian in NJ

As the 968's were built at Stuttgart they were able to offer the Exclusiv options. I guess this would make them more 'handmade' than the other 924 944 951 variants, not that it matters how they were built.