OldGuy

I received Excellence was Expected for Christmas and have been reading it pretty much non stop except for some GT3 dreaming and some football, since Dec 25th.. I am getting a whiff from the reading I am doing that the reason Porsche has not embraced racing as it did was because---most of the syndicates outlawed or restricted turbo
based motors. Turbos are where Porsche had the advantage in its engineering and that helped it maintain its edge over other manufacturers in racing. In Formula one Porsche had done extremely well with its TAG motor in the late 80's but in the early 90s when it tried a NA motor, it gave up after less than a year. ANy one else have a idea of what happened. They gave up on the Le Mans project that became the CGT to focus on the Cayenne.. I am wondering if killing the turbo killed Porshce. BUt I have only read about 100 of the 1531 pages of the 3 volumes. Now you know why I never finished my THesis for my Phd.

OldGuy

A couple of other notes that bothered me. in speaking of the GT2 development Hans Riedel said that
"our custumers want the newest most costly cars" WHat!! Most costly Sheesh! talk about missing the
mark!! then Wiedeking said of the CGT "lets make a top of the line sports car in the high price segment"
It seems like all they care about is money. Not being the best but the most costly, the most high priced.
Sheeesh. will they ever recover.

Fishey

because they only care about profit and in truth I cannot see the company lasting much over another 20years at there current rate of sucking.

aof

As you know, F-1 got pretty pricey. Perhaps now that Porsche's doing better with the bottomline, they may reconsider?.....

nman413

Hey Paul, I was just thinking of you the other day (I dont remember exactly why). Are you coming up here for the Laguna Seca track day on Jan 17-18?

Dennis K

Money. The TAG-Porsche had TAG money helping fund the project. The 3.5L NA was entirely funded by Porsche. By that time, manufacturer involvement by Fiat, Renault, Honda and Ford had taken budgets to another level and Porsche couldn't compete.

chris walrod

I have to laugh when I hear F-1 and cost reduction in the same sentence these days. Still an oxymoron to my ears.

Yes, F-1 did get really expensive to remain competitive, even in the turbo days. I would bet between cost and the probability of Porsche dominance in F-1 is the reason they pulled out. Seems as though if Porsche doesnt feel they can run at the front, they dont race. I am sure Porsche's economic hard times in the late 80's through the mid to late 90's played a huge part of their racing withdrawl.

SOOOOOO, now that they are not afraid to gloat on how profitable they are now, why dont they race, is my current question.

When news broke of the Carrera GT, I thought for sure Porsche was going to use this car for at least a LeMans effort.. Bummer thus far..

Adrian

The answer is simple. The current CEO of PAG and his rules make it impossible to go racing unless somebody else pays.
Porsche will never field a factory team again whilst he is in charge because a factory team cannot make money and every Porsche department has to make money. No profit projections, no go.
The Le Mans racing project of 1980 was ordered destroyed and I mean destroyed. All that existed was broken up and disposed of. Apparently nobody asked permission of the CEO to develop the project and he was not impressed when he found out.
The customer racing program is currently making money but only as long as the GT-3 remains competitive in its own class.
Ciao,
Adrian.

aof

I also wonder if there is a philosophical clash of ideas, given that BMW, Mercedes and Ferrari feel NA engines are technically superior to turbos- which Porsche have doggedly embraced...

Plus the Ferrari domination of the sport can't be too encouraging either....

s2racer

i thought i read a note in excellence (the magazine) that porsche was going to reenter motorsports with either a LMP project or use the cgt platform. as i recall it was projected to be going in 2006.

OldGuy

Adrian, according to the book Weidenking acknowledges that Racing is very important and keeps refering to when they get back to racing not if. But on the other hand several comments he has
made in the book seem also to back up what you say. Reading between the lines I would have to agree with you. Reading between the lines also seems to say to me that they are interested in soaking their
customers for as much as they can get out of them. Value is not a word he uses.

TheOtherEric

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. If PAG re-entered F1, who would pay the ten of millions of $$? We, the customers, through higher prices. Why should we urge PAG to spend money on such efforts? If they want to minimize costs and keep prices down, why are we complaining?

OldGuy

Eric the reason the people want Porsche back in battle is because the rapiers that we drive now are
razor sharp becaused they were honed in battle. If they dont go back the swords will become dull over
time. Hows that for a comeback??!!

TheOtherEric

Let me guess: you got the Lord of the Rings trilogy for Christmas?

OldGuy

I got the third installment of the directors cuts, but I forgot about it till now. I have been reading
that stupid book for 12 hours a day (excellence was expected)