hawk993

Just curious, I was googling and ran across some thread that said the 993 was hand made along with the 928. Does anyone know? I do have the 1996 Porsche 993 video, but they do not mention the car being hand made, they show people pushing the car around on a cart and one guy checking the panel fit, no mention of hand made though.

Thanks,

Chuck

Terry Adams

Hand made is a relative term, and one should distinguish between hand moved on the line, versus hand made. I did a factory tour of the final assembly area in Nov '99, I think about a year after they had been producing the 996. The 996 was entirely moved on a rail from beginning to end, and there were 996 mixed with 986 on the same line at the same time. This per se does not make it less hand made. On the contrary, you could say that the guy(s) who used to move the car can now assemble and inspect instead. The tour guide took great care to point out how much money they had saved by automating some parts of the process. I think much more was saved with less expensive parts, eg door handles, and foam versus steel dashboard innards, but especially with half the car being common at the front with the Boxster. Unique as the 993 is, I think Porsche has gotten the bugs out of the first couple years' 996 production, but perceptions linger, and the parts impression will last forever in my mind.

Jack Ennuste

I have good example.

Carrera GT is hand made: 75 workers assembly 3 cars each day.
Cayenne is "line made": 80 workers assembly 150 cars per day.
Part count is about the same?
I saw it in Lepzig factory.

993 was in betweween???

Monique

I was told the 993 was partly handbuilt; some robots were used for parts of the assembly process.

The painting was robotized. These were young inexperienced robots though... if you lift the carpet in the front of thetrunk area, you will note that your car is not painted all the way to the floor pan (only primer). Coz the robot did not reach all the way to the bottom

This is an easy way to detect a heavy accident. If the area is painted, then it had a tough bump and was repainted.. tougher to detect if your car is white...