Oshin11

Ok I think that you guys are being very ignorant by saying that the 993 was the best car they ever made, thats your opinion. The 997 is a fantastic car. And whoever thinks "hand made" is better, thats a myth of the past. Do you realize that we are in a day in age where MACHINES run out lives? Eye surgery----MACHINE, going from point A to point B-----MACHINE. The machines that assemble cars these days are INCREDIBLY accurate......much more so than a human being. And in fact there is a human being inspecting the process to make sure that every installation is built up to par. Do you realize how much the company tests these cars and bakes them to perfection before they are shipped out? Everyone needs to get over the fact that the company is trying to expand to a broader market......if it hadn't started to produce the boxter and cayanne lines, I wouldn't have a job today. So in my OPINION..........lick it. (PS I am not angry, just a little annoyed).

Dan V

The best part of this is seeing texas911 post this and then when people disagree with the premise.

2ndof2

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ zzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZZZ zzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZ

Father of 3

We don't think our cars are the best ever made (ask those who have had their top ends rebuilt - Hans must have been asleep at the switch or Gunther in the design lab), we just think ours are the best looking cars ever made. That is a fact! Or is that an opinion? As for hand built and air cooled, that really does mark a milestone in Porsche engineering and build philosophy. Clearly not necessarily better as the new cars go faster and stop faster but a milestone nonetheless. There will always be a bit of sentimentality about the past whether you are talking about cars, music, movies, or whatever. But really, our cars are the best looking!

Can we all just get along and agree that 996s are ugly and that 997s are actually pretty nice looking (and a lot faster than our cars)?

Most all of the above is said in humor BTW.

max911

re: the video. how can two different cars, with absolutely no common parts, be mixed in one assembly line - and be assembled in any sort of efficient or logical manner??
not looking for an arguement.... just an answer to the question the voices inside my head are asking

DC from Cape Cod

Plastic and paper mache parts into the Boxster and brass and leather into the 993.

jdistefa

I would like to refer all of you [most amusing] bickering nannies to this most excellent reactionary thread.

Oshin11

DC from Cape Cod: Don't judge what you don't know, plastics can be stronger than metals through the technology of materials science and engineering. Now dont jump down my throat saying that 993s are better than boxsters because I agree with you.......judge dont say things like "plastic and paper mache parts into the boxter and brass....etc..." because it sounds silly No offense intended.

DC from Cape Cod

It was a joke.

It was supposed to sound silly.

Besides, where did I compare plastic with metal?

This forum needs more people with a sense of humor.

Father of 3

Yeah, settle down Francis.

ed devinney

It's not all that hard in current manufacturing plants. The Stuttgart line is flexible and builds any mix of 911, boxster and cayman. As in the video the cars are mixed. When I visited in 2005 there were separate but similar assembly lines for flat and V engines, presumably it was the same when there were air & water cooled flat 6s being built.

Model-specific jigs go with the chassis or parts in question. Parts are pulled from the warehouse and sent in poka-yoke fashion to the assembly points on a just-in-time basis, specifically for the car bring built. IMO Porsche must make out like a bandit on 'special order' cars as fundamentally every car can be unique and not materially affect the build process, only the sourcing of any 'special' parts.

In the mid 90s there would surely have been more complexity in the logistics and sourcing of parts that gets easier with the post-993 shared platforms, but even so it's mostly a matter of getting the right components to the right place and making sure Dieter, Suleiman and Recep know how to install them.

Ed Burdell

Quite so. The whole point of just-in-time, lean mfg, or "Japanese Mfg Techniques" is to get your processes tight enough so you can get down to the optimum batch size of 1. By mixing 993's and 986's on the same line demonstrated that Wendelin Wiedeking achieved just that.

By tightening the processes so well, build quality soared for both models, regardless of the human vs. machine built content. What separated the two models was, of course, the design - the 993 being the height of maturity for the older design, the 986 being the first of the new.

It'd be interesting to compare a Boxster built in 1998 with one built in 2007 for design quality. I bet you'd see a similar maturation with the '07.

max911

thank-you Ed and Ed.

max

99three

This is one amusing thread. I think it's time for a Jägermeister?

Dan V

2 Eds are better than 1.