SomethingAboutB

Do 944s also fall into the hand built catagory as 928s, given they were built at Audi?

F451

Very interesting guys. Lots of good food for thought. Thanks for all the good input.

I see a 928 documentary is in order. We can gather up all kinds of footage, vintage and modern, interview a bunch of people, including 928 designers, and the coup de gra (sp?), get some old german codgers that actually assembled the 928's to tell us how it was done back in the day.

Package it up as an hour long documentary, sell if off to the cable channels , and make the real money selling a couple of hundred dvd's to the crowd here. LOL!

I'll volunteer to write and direct it (using rennlist as my main info source - of course- heh heh).

Who's going to step up to the plate to produce (read "finance") the project?

Ed

redpathtribe

Hammer,

I've never heard of that poster before. Anyway, you could post a pic of it? Having a GT, I would LOVE to find a poster like that... maybe time to make some copies of it... of course, only if it's not copywrited or not still available

Ron_H

Ed said: "Who's going to step up to the plate to produce (read "finance") the project? "

There are grants available for such projects. All you need is a statement of purpose and a business plan, which you have in outline form.

F451

Hmmm, now don't be removing all my excuses for not doing something WAY fun like this. LOL!

Better to let me exist in my routine work life without any glimmer of excitement and no clue how easily it would be to change it.

Ok, I am going to pretend I never read your post. Thanks!

Ed -head in the sand- Boyd

ps: Just kidding. And hmmm, that is interesting...

cobalt

Good point. I would say most likely not but that is a guess. The 968 on the other hand was built by Porsche.

tv

That is a good idea. As I believe each engine was built by 1 individual from start to finish.

Jim bailey - 928 International

If "Handbuilt" means no robots I believe there were none on the ASSEMBLY line then but the body panels were stamped out by machine in big presses and there is little variance in dimension. The cars moved down an assembly line and premade bits were bolted on by men using power tools and a fender is a fender which will fit any 928 same with hoods ,doors, hatches... Most of the parts on a 928 were made by outside companies and delivered to the Porsche factory for assembly on the assembly line. The engine blocks were cast at a foundry then sent to Porsche for final machine work and assembly. The 928 was assembled by people on an assembly line it was NOT handbuilt in the traditional sense. The cars moved down a line and many, many people did their specialized task as it passed by. At the same time 911s were being assembled on an adjacent line. The 944 would have been assembled much the same way designed engineered by Porsche assembled by Audi. All the current Boxster assembly for the US market is done under contract by an outside company in Scandinavia . Perhaps the only question is one of definitions but when I think "handbuilt" I see a guy with a sheet of aluminum a hammer and a wooden body buck pounding out a fender, not a huge press banging out a fender in SECONDS...

Imo000

Well in that case the 928 assembly line was no different than every other mass production assembly line in the world. Maybe Porsche used the “hand build” phrase as a sales pitch. In a sense its true, cause assembly robots didn’t yet exist.

wds928

I think the "hand built" refers to not all assembled by compute controlled machines. Yes it takes a longer to put together by hand and there can be and are variations between cars, but the overall product seems tighter, better assembled. I believe I read that the Mercedes 500E was assembled on the Porsche 959 line. So I've got two of the last of the hand-builts.

Tom in Austin

Hand-built to distinguish from automated and robotic processes. Up until the Boxster and 996, Porsche did hand-build the 911, 968 and 928s in Stuttgardt. And Boxster was the changeover point when they had to lower manufacturing costs to stay competitive (not just have a newer product and design).

A little over half of all Boxsters ever made were entirely assembled in Finland by a contractor. As Porsche invested in automated manufacturing and re-fit the Stuttgardt plant, they began bulding Boxsters there too, probably more S's than base models, I would think.

So, yes, ours are the last of the hand-built Porsches. Time wil tell if anything was lost from the transition, but one thing's for sure, if it weren't for all the Boxsters, Porsche would be very different company than what it is today.

Vilhuer

AFAIK all/nearly all 987 Boxsters and Caymans are build in Finland. Too much demand for 997 for Stuttgart to have room to make anything else.

Jim bailey - 928 International

Maybe the term should be " hand assembled " if all that is meant is no robots yet even there they use power tools. It might take ten minutes to train an assembler to bolt on a fender but ten YEARS for someone to learn how to MAKE a fender from a piece of sheet metal. " Handbuilt" to me brings to mind the classic pre- WWII luxury cars , one off prototypes ,sports racers ,custom bodied special cars which never ever went down an assembly line no matter if it is manned by robots or people.

blown 87

And that some one better have a lot of talent going in, because not every one can be trained to do it.
We had to learn how to (not fenders, but cowlings and patches) when i got my aircraft mechanics ticket, that and wood work fluncked a few guys out, the wood almost did me in.

6.0-928S

Ask & you shall receive...........

Hammer