Mike in Chi

I too read with interest, and a little regret comments from the Rennsport Reunion attendees and others lamenting all the great race cars Porsche USED to build; that NOW the factory is concentrating all it's efforts on a SUV; and that NOW the factory is content with class victories instead of overall victories.

Everybody is wondering if PAG has lost it's soul, or at least traded it for corporate profits.

Maybe I've read about too many conspiracy theories, but I think Wendy Weideking has been blowing smoke at us.

Consider this:

How could the board approve the funds for the Carrera GT, but not the race car? Wouldn't that be equally expensive to develop? Sure they can sell them for $450 Gs each. But think how many 956/962s were sold at comparable prices.

More significantly, when Zuffenhausen had a new open-cockpit car (for Le Mans and the ALMS) already designed and built two years ago, it was suddenly shelved despite tests that were incredibly promising. This project had to be concurrent with the SUV. Why would the board commit funds to bring a new race car that far, and then suddenly shelve it. And don't forget, this project was concurrent with Audi's initial attempts to win Le Mans.

Since then, international sportscar racing has been dominated by the Audi R8, instead of a new Porsche rennwagen.

Now consider this:

Whose the head of VW-Audi? Ferdinand Piech (yeah the guy who ran TWO major race programs concurrently- development of the 908 iterations AND development of the 917 - for a much smaller Porsche in the late 60's. And the factory did it again a few years later with major programs in Groups 4, 5 AND 6)).

Who's the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, and Ferry's nephew? Yep, Herr Piech.

Who has a seat on PAG's Board of Directors? Yep, Ferd.

Who controls roughly one-third of PAG stock with his mother? You guessed it.

The guy's definitely got clout.

So here's the theory.

My guess is, there was a little boardroom chat between Wendelin and Ferdinand. Ferd said back off your race programs for three years, and let my company dominate endurance racing. Then Porsche can have it again. (Interestingly, when those years are up, Herr Piech is scheduled to retire.)

When one-third of the voting stock talks, I imagine the chairman listens very carefully.

If you've spent any time watching big companies, the theory plays. And it makes a lot more sense than Wendelin's "All the money and engineering are going to the SUV" story.

(BTW, PAG somehow found the time and resources to design a new sport-bike for Harley recently)

My other guess, and it too is just a guess, is that there are a number of engineers in Zuffenhausen who are very intimate with the R8. After all, blood and voting stock are much stronger than any sense of manufacturer rivalry. Besides, how could Audi have gotten to the very top of world competition in just a couple of years. What were they doing previously -- DTM?

So I suspect Audi will kick butt again next year, then end the R8 program. Shortly thereafter, Porsche will be back, big time.

They'll even be able to scrape together the funds to support two race programs:

To win Le Mans with a new prototype.

And to win Paris-Dakkar with a Cayenne.