Z356

In addition to the places I reported yesterday that Dieter Landenberger (Manager Historical Archives at Porsche) took me & another Porsche employee on Wednesday night (April 17th), I must also mention a special visit we made to the Stuttgart headquarters of the famous 'Württembergischer Automobilclub e.V.' Founded by Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach and Robert Bosch in 1898/1899, it is the oldest automotive club in the world! Dieter is on the board of directors and was able to give us a quick tour of the place!

http://www.wac1899.de/

Their website gives us this history of the club, which has been translated from the original German:

"The Württemberg Automobile Club was founded by car pioneer, Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Robert Bosch in 1898. King William II took over the protectorate. The club was allowed to call themselves "Royal". This privilege was extinguished in 1918 when the Republic was proclaimed in Germany. Nevertheless, the tradition lives on. The WAC is committed to the home Württemberg closely connected. Between 1933 and 1945 extinguished the activities of the club. All attempts failed to continue the club under a different name.

The tradition remained alive on the duklen years. Soon after the second World War I was called back an independent Wurttembergischer automobile club to life. On 17 November 1951 took place in the small Kursaal in Bad Cannstatt the founding meeting of Württemberg Automobile Club eV instead. In June 1952, the new club rooms could be occupied in Queen Olga building on Schlossplatz in Stuttgart. In subsequent years, the clubhouse was built in the Mörikestraße 30, which in an air raid on 7 October 1943 had been completely destroyed. On 3 October 1956 was the grand opening of the new clubhouse in the presence of representatives of the Provincial Government and the then AVD-President, Prince of Hohenlohe Langenburg, instead.

Still exist with the global companies Daimler, Robert Bosch, Porsche has many years of accumulated good relations. Senior employees of these companies are permanent members of the Presidium of the WAC. We are particularly proud to have been the oldest automobile club in the world and the only one of Gottlieb Daimler, the inventor of the automobile personally co-founded."

It must be a great honor for someone like Dieter to be associated with an automobil club with the depth of history as 'Württembergischer'! And I can only imagine the list of current club members from the ranks of Porsche, Mercedes, Robert Bosch, Behr, Mahle, Dürr and the many other vendors/sub-contractors to the automobile industry which has made this city world renown! Plus the hundreds of other regular members of the club, auto enthusiasts like us, that are able to enjoy driving the automobiles produced in their own region of Germany! Very special club indeed!

Overall, this evening was most pleasant & informative. And I must again thank my hosts for making it all possible!

Saludos,
Eduardo
Colorado

Macca

Eduardo. Fantastic posts. What a wonderful experience. You have built up a lifelong friendship with Porsche and its truly inspirational.

Just as an aside what did you glean about the new GT3 from your Porsche friends if anything? Id would be nice to hear their views on the GT3 to give us some idea of what to expect (if you can share those here)....

Z356

Macca, thank you for your note. Indeed it all was a wonderful experience!

Re: news on the gt3. I really didn't want to push it with any of the people I met on my European trip that actually work for Porsche in Germany. Any information that they might inadvertently passed on to me that has not yet been 'approved' for public dissemination, press announcements or AP's media interviews could potentially compromise their positions! Thus, I would not put them in that 'spot'...or 'pickle'! I value our relationship more than any fleeting advance information on any particular model!

In general, the employees at Porsche are very cognizant of the 'secrets' which the company wants to keep hidden until an appropriate disclosure is deemed necessary. On my factory tour earlier in the day of April 17th at Werk II, we were 'detoured' from a critical area (the 'marriage' of the power train to the chassis / normally part of any factory tour) because a few 'prototypes' (likely 991 gt3's) were on the assembly line in those locations and Porsche did not want any visitor to see them....yet!

I had no such qualms in questioning PCNA CEO Detlev von Platen on April 23rd because he is precisely the point man to ask such pointed questions about a model that he will introduced into our particular market! My only constraint when I met him was the limited time I was able to discuss the topic with him! This was not a scheduled appointment, but a chance meeting at the breakfast buffet since he was staying at the same Stuttgart hotel our group was booked for two nights!

We will soon know more about the gt3 as production gears to start up in a few months and more prototypes hit the roads of Europe and the US! I am wishing this gt3, and the upcoming gt3 RS, to be all YOU think it will be! But like one of our former president used to say: 'Trust...but Verify'. In that light, I believe that the discussions we have been having, particularly on this 991 gt3 Rennlist forum, have been nothing but outstanding! I commend all that have participated in them and hope we keep up our 'curiosity' on the subject! I have tried to read the discussion on the other enthusiast forums and I can tell you that nothing compares to the depth & breath of our conversations here!

Saludos,
Eduardo
Colorado

fester

Hi Eduardo, amazing and very helpful post. I'm going to ask a dumb question since we are planning to go there this summer for the first time

1. Is 991 assembled here?
2. Do current 911 owners get advantage/special treatment over regular visitors?
3. How much of a factory and actual assembly process you can see?
4. How do you book it? I was thinking of asking my dealer

Thanks again!

Larry Cable

1. yes
2. no
3. usually production line, leather trim assy, engine assy as I recall
4. mailto:werksfuehrungen@porsche.de english tours are only on certain days as I recall.

dont forget to also take a couple of hours to combine a visit to the museum also

SuperDarius

Great Eduardo!

Really good report,it reminds me the factory tour i made around 10 years ago...is time to repeat!

fxz

You will see Andreas On a GT3
MY 2016 indeed...

Shahano

Eduardo really great information. Thank you. I am really curious of what the gen2 GT3 will be like since mine still has not arrived.
Did you see any Gt3s on the production line?

928cs

Thank you very much for sharing your experience

How is it possible to have access to Porsche's archives?

bronson7

Just read the whole thread Eduardo, excellent material, truly enjoyed it. Many of the factory pictures refresh my memory of when I spent some time there a few years ago. Thank you.