August West

2013 is just around the corner and I'm wondering what Porsche is planning for the 50th Anniversary of the 911. 50 years of 911 production is a pretty remarkable feat, and my hat is off to all the engineers, drivers and dreamers at Porsche.

I just read Randy Leffingwell's "Porsche 911 - Perfection By Design." What a great book, well written and with lots of great pictures...required reading for 911 enthusiasts and guaranteed to fill you with warm fuzzy feelings.

So, an early Happy Birthday wishes to the 911, and a big thanks to all you Rennlisters for your camaraderie and valuable insights that further heighten my love and appreciation for my 964!

f3nr15

So that will put the intro of the 964 in 1989 at exactly the half way mark. Even more reason to appreciate these amazing machines.

I had a non-car-enthusiast buddy of mine ask to "have a look" last evening. He's quite an astute guy, and a collector of contemporary art (mainly paintings). He couldn't stop going on about the "flowing lines" of the car, the analogue dials, the utilitarian interior, and "the smell". He then started asking about how collectible they are. And I didn't even get him out for a spin!

dcbailey

I have a factory tour scheduled on Wednesday and I'll ask them what they're planning. Will post their response.

911Jetta

Have car, will travel to Porsche parties!
Let the celebrations begin.

August West

You wouldn't be taking delivery of the new 991, by any chance?

The factory tour and museum are on my Bucket List. I loved the National Geographic "Ultimate Factories" episode at the Porsche factory detailing the building of a 997. Fascinated by all the robotics and the just-in-time placement of all the parts, though I'd love to see how my 964 was built, apparently all by hand!

Seight

I believe the anniversary will be 2013. The 911 first appeared in Europe in late 1963, hence the Anniversary or Jubilee model of the 964 being built in 1993.

Laker

something like this? (although John Boggiano pointed out these aren't 964s)

dcbailey

OK, went to the factory on Wednesday, and my guide, a college student/internee, named Florian was not aware of anything special that they had planned. So he called his manager, Christian Hoenniger, who is in PR, to see whether they had anything planned. During the course of the tour, he did not hear back from Herr Hoenniger, and I explicitly checked at the end of the tour to be sure. I will send an email to Herr Hoenniger as a follow-up, but it makes me wonder whether they've given any thought to it.

The tour was pretty neat. They produce 911s and Boxters on the same assembly line, all driven by the bar code attached to the car. Even some of the race cars are produced on the line, per Florian. Everything is just in time, driven by automated delivery carts. They produce 170 cars per day, and it takes 11 hours for each car to be produced. The factory has multiple levels, with the cars moving up and down depending on the stage of production. It's highly automated, with numerous robots, but still mostly with a significant amount of hand assembly. We saw the engine shop and upholstery area. The engine components are picked using a computerized lighting system, which triggers a small light on each parts bin in a given aisle which the picker turns off one by one as he pulls the part. There are multiple lights per bin, and he picks the number of parts lighted. The engines have their own assembly line, in another building, and they are pressure tested for quality at a fairly early stage. A selected number of engines are hot tested. Florian said that 10% of the finished cars are actually driven out on the streets, and we saw lots of cars in the area. Hide flaws are scanned and marked electronically prior to cutting to eliminate any flaws. They use a high pressure water cutter to cut out individual parts for the cars. Black and brown leather predominates, but there were a number of custom colors there (including a very odd yellow variant). We saw the sewing room, where you can select the color of the thread used to sew the hides together. Unfortunately, we did not have time to see them building any seats or other interior pieces.

We also visited the museum, which is across the street from the factory and the dealership, and I will try to post some pictures shortly. It was amazing, and I recommend it to everyone. I spent far too much money on models, shirts, etc. in the museum shop, where they have every imaginable model Porsche in miniature. I picked up a Carrera 2 convertible model for myself, but could have spent $1000 easily on one of each (and I did think about it too seriously).

Also visited the Nurburgring while in Germany, and that was a lot of fun. Next time, I'll try and drive it.

It certainly made me interested in getting a new car there, and someday I'll be back to pick it up at the factory.

Will try to post more later tonight.

Regards,
Clay

August West

Okay, I must have gotten confused, so it'll be 50 years in 2013? Don't 2013 production runs start this year sometime late Summer or Fall? Thought we'd be hearing noises about the Golden Anniversary by now.

Gold paint schemes? Gold trim? Gold rims?

dcbailey

No response from Porsche, other than wanting my address and phone no. If anything more comes out of it, I'll post.

Clay

Henry964

I am sure that Porsche will have big local meeting celebrating the first 50 years of these beauties.

I was a participant of the "40 Fast Years" Festival back in 2003 and it was great, more than 150 Porsches, most of them 911 from every year

jbronsonl

Though one of the 901 prototypes was introduced at the Frankfurt Auto Show in October, 1963, no production examples were produced until mid-1964, at which time they were identified as 1965 model year car's. Late in 1964, the dispute with Peugeot led to the renaming of the car to 911. Accordingly, a more fitting 50th anniversary for the 911 will be in mid-2014, when the 2015 911's (991's) are available for purchase.

August West

I started this thread stating 2014 as the 50th anniversary but got shot down so changed it to 2013. My initial reasoning was that the cars built in 1963 were for model year 1964, so it made sense to say that 2014 would be the 50th, but then you see that the 30th anniversary 911s were model year 1993, so I would think that if there were any plans to celebrate the 50th, we'd be hearing about it by now as 2013 model year cars would start production this coming August or so, right?

ChaseN

But then, the 40th anniversary cars were 2004's....I think Porsche themselves are confused ???

dcbailey

I finally heard back from Porsche Germany. They suggested that I speak to my local dealer! What a waste of time. You'd think they could give us a suggestion.