Today’s activity at the Japanese Grand Prix is cancelled due to Typhoon Hagibis hitting Suzuka. Watching videos of the drivers making plans for their gift of free time, I feel like I’ve also been gifted some time and I’m spending that gift in the garage.
I’m currently waiting for the postman to deliver a steering head bearing for one of my BMW R1100R motorcycles and will get that pressed in when it arrives. I’m then going to ready the rest of the bike for an MOT test later this week. Youtube has no videos of R1100 steering head bearing replacement, so I might shoot something on that. Either way, I’m looking forward to doing the work.
Saturday is garage day for me and that time is closely guarded. When one is young and working Monday to Friday, free time can seem like a given. Time in general, but free time particularly. One of the great dangers of freelancing is taking on so much work that one works seven days a week. This is especially true of freelancers who work doing what they love.
I was very guilty of this when I first went full-time freelance back in 2010. Having handed the company Prius back to my motor trade publisher employers and gone solo a little ahead of time, the great fear was cashflow, so I took on everything that was offered. I was writing for two mainstream motoring magazines, several specialist Porsche magazines, many private PR clients and picking up other work, including bizarre jobs like writing a tourist brochure promoting adrenalin sports in Bedfordshire and oddball topics for in-flight magazines.
I rented an office in a village nearby and would go straight there after the school run. The working day started at 9:30am and frequently finished after midnight. No school at weekends meant I could start work at 7am and work through to the early hours of the following morning. Workaholic doesn’t begin to describe life at that time: if I wasn’t asleep for my usual four hours a night or running my three daughters to school, I was sitting in front of a Mac and trying to come up with the next big idea that would encourage clients not to drop me the following month.
The Freelance Fear
It took a long time to overcome the idea that every client phone call was the one that would end our relationship, and I was in good company. Derek Bell told me that he felt the same way when working for Ferrari. “Every time someone told me that Mr Ferrari wanted to see me, I was sure this would be the day he would tell me he’d finally figured out that I wasn’t that good and could I please leave the building.”
While freelancers all look at other freelancers and wish for their confidence, “freelance fear” is universal. Derek Bell eventually left Ferrari when he nearly burned to death in one of its cars and I had a similar epiphany in 2012. After two years of manic freelancing, I was making great money but putting on weight and becoming lethargic. The early years with my kids were drifting away at the expense of clients, most of whom would have left me to burn if my world caught fire and hired someone else in a heartbeat.
What was going on in my head was the same thing all of us face: mortality. Seneca’s letter “On the Shortness of Life’ expresses this perfectly. “You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!”
Seneca wrote this over two thousand years ago. The meaning of life, or “What should time be about?” is the question we’ve considered since the earliest days. As it is definitely not about selling your life to people who do not truly care about you, I started taking my time back.
Magazines were the first to go, as they never paid on time and were all pushing for more work for less money. I kept one magazine, as the editor is such a great friend and I have continued to work with him, mostly for free. My childhood ambition was to write for the car magazines I lost myself in from my earliest days and keeping that outlet is incredibly important to me: it honours a brave young man who got on a bus to London with his favourite music, £65 in his pocket and the desire to be published alongside his heroes.
As I retreated from jobs that any writer could do, I began to focus on the work that challenged me to keep learning and developing my marketing skills. I went back to college and studied photography. I teamed up with people starting new businesses: the classic Porsche risk takers. I made myself affordable for those guys, as their passion was infectious and our life stories often ran parallel. We understood each other without talking and breathed the same freelance air. Working with risk takers is always going to be at the centre of what I’m about.
Next year will be my tenth year as a full-time freelancer, and I look back on that decade with great fondness and respect. My kids are now starting to make their own lives and I know who they are: they are wonderful people and a great source of pride to their parents. Since taking more time for my health and wellbeing, I’ve lost thirty-five pounds and suffered no serious illnesses – touch wood. I’ve learned to cook quite a bit and enjoy time with Ted the Jack Russell and with my cars, bikes and friends. I continue to work with classic Porsche risk takers and they are a constant source of joy and inspiration.
Porsche as a centre of life
It’s hard to believe that Porsche as a brand sits at the centre of this most rewarding decade. Having always read voraciously, these cars are part of my story and bookmark chapters in my life much more than people or places. My earliest Porsche memory is as a young Irish boy sitting in a field, watching my first 911 pass by and sensing something important. Touching my first 911, driving my first one, buying my first: these are all moments when goals were achieved that reset my vision of life.
Less being more is a core Porsche philosophy, but Porsche did not invent the idea. The founders, designers and those who were attracted to the tribe connected with the importance of what was, and is, important. As we are all ultimately in search of the meaning of life, what better conduit to consider these questions than a classic Porsche? Simple, beautiful, highly emotional but humanly flawed. Every Porsche represents human imperfection.
We can read the daily press releases talking up the future – today it is Porsche’s new flying car partnership with Boeing – and get sucked into chasing what’s next, but the future is all about your time running out. Do not forget the importance of now. Learn from the great minds that have already passed: slow down and think of your time. One day it will be over, as this inscription on a Scottish gravestone so wisely reminds us.
“My glass has run Yours is running Be wise in time Your hour is coming”
Has your Porsche help you to put metaphysical life into context? Tell me about that: in comments or in confidence.
p.s.: As I pressed “publish” on this blog, the steering head bearing dropped through the letterbox. Flow is how life works when we embrace what is truly important. Enjoy your weekend.
To learn more about my work and commission my valuation expertise or content generation skills, you can:
Regular readers of my former column in GT Porsche magazine will know about the psychological struggle with my Honda CR-V. How can it be that, after more than thirty years of buying and selling cars and with several beautifully engineered German classics in the fleet, my daily driver is a grey Honda CR-V? Wrong as that feels, thoughts of selling it feel even worse.
My first experience of Honda ownership was a silver Ballade that I took as a trade-in back in the mid-1990s. While it had all the appeal of beige nylon trousers, my daily driver at the time was a Renault 21 Turbo with an engine that had been balanced and blueprinted by a friend who built McLaren F1 engines for a living. It was a great car to drive, but, if one started the car and attempted to move it before the oil was fully up to temperature, the cold oil pressure was so extreme that it would bend the filter body and eject the engine oil out through the remote filter housing.
This would invariably occur when I was leaving for work. I would then be an idiot car salesman in a Jermyn Street suit, replacing a bent oil filter on the side of the road with the soles of my smart shoes immersed in used Mobil 1.
The arrival of the boxy but reliable Honda Ballade was a revelation. After ten years of running Renaults – mainly because they were a bit quirky and I had served my apprenticeship with the Régie – the Honda’s ability to deliver a life entirely free from mechanical breakdown was so transformative that I could not bear to part with it. When I left London, the 21 Turbo was sold to help raise my house deposit and the Honda came with me to Northants. Only when someone offered a crazy amount to buy the Ballade did I eventually part with it, but it left a big impact. I have maintained a bland but bulletproof Japanese backup car ever since.
The CRV is the latest of those machines. Bought as a one-owner car with front end damage, I repaired the bodywork and converted it to run on LPG. I change the oil more often than I wash it, but it has never failed an MOT. Even when it does need some attention, the parts are affordable and it is fairly easy to work on.
Recently the reliable Honda has started to cut out when cold. I’ve checked the obvious things and there are no fault codes yet, but it may be oil that is slightly too thick for the VTC solenoid, or maybe the timing chain has stretched, causing the timing to drop out when the engine wants a lot of advance during warmup. While changing the timing chain is not impossible, adding it to other things on the Honda’s current to-do list means I have a few quid to spend, as well as several weekends in the garage.
Deciding whether to spend the money and sort the Honda, or stick it on eBay and sell it in in favour of a newer CR-V involves an internal dialogue. If the car was newer and I was anything like most people, it might be time for a trade in. Manufacturers are currently offering thousands of pounds for cars like this in part exchange against a brand new car, but I as would never spend my own money on a new car, that is a complete non-starter for me.
A friend is selling a very smart 2010 CR-V diesel that might make a nice upgrade, but a Honda mechanic tells me to steer clear of diesels as the engines are prone to detonation and the steering gives trouble. Buying a later petrol would need another grand spent on an LPG conversion and the engines are low on torque vs the diesel. My friend’s 2010 car is up for £6k, but I’ve found a couple of later 2012 models with better spec and in fairly good colours up for closer to £5k. Styling/spec/presentability is not a concern: the decision is all about cost.
Let’s say that buying a later diesel with 100k miles is going to cost £5k plus £300 road tax up front. I’d budget £100 for a small service on purchase and £700 for a clutch and flywheel early next year. I would expect the car to cost roughly the same to run over two years as my current CR-V and for the value to lose maybe £2.5k over that time, as I take it to 150k miles and the later models get cheaper to buy.
Keeping my current known-quantity 150k-mile CR-V and preparing it to a level comparable to the other car is perhaps going to cost me five days in the garage (call it £1500 in time that I could spend doing client work) and maybe £600 in parts and paint. I end up with a car that will probably need nothing more done for three years, but would likely be ready to scrap at that stage. Value now is maybe £1500 cleaned up and sold in an eBay auction. The maths therefore look like this:
Keep old CR-V
Buy new CR-V
Value now
1500
5000
Upfront costs
2100
1100
Total
3600
6100
Value 2022
0
2500
3-year cost
3600
3600
So: it will cost me £1500 to keep the old CR-V, as I could get that now if I sold it. Adding £1500 in time plus £600 in bits is another £2100. So to keep that car and prep it for three more years is £3600.
Buying a newer CR-V at £5k and spending, say, £1100 in time and parts in the next few months on sorting the reasons why the current owner is selling means £6100 up front. If we assume that the newer one will have a likely value of £2500 in three years, we see that it has cost £3600 over that time.
With running costs of both likely to be fairly identical and the cost over three years apparently exactly the same, all of this suggests that I should probably sell the old one and take the benefits of a newer car with better spec and lower miles, as it will cost me nothing extra to drive that for the next three years.
However, as David McRaney’s book “You Are Not So Smart” points out, this analysis does not account for the fact that humans make flawed decisions based on biased logic, sunk costs, the ‘Availability Heuristic’ and more. Part of me wants keeping what I already own to make more sense than changing it, to preserve my sense of wellbeing at having bought wisely in the past.
Man Maths arrives
Before I start the analysis, I already know I will probably persist with the old car as although it might have a bit of work to do, it has been reliable to date, it has good memories and I have invested some money in it (sunk costs) with the LPG conversion, towbar fitment, set of spare winter tyres and Apple Carplay head unit. So, when the numbers come out looking identical, I move them around to suit my earlier presumptions. This process of moving numbers around to confirm a presupposed narrative is often referred to as “Man Maths”.
Removing the cost of my time, as I try to convince myself that five days is unlikely and it will probably take one lunch break to sort this CRV, it now costs £2100 to keep the car vs £3600 for the new car. I also convince myself that I dodged a bullet with the later car’s alleged reputation for exploded diesel engines and the running costs of dearer diesel versus the LPG the older car burns, plus I get to keep £5k in the bank. A change to the status quo stands no chance against all of these tools.
When Loss Aversion meets Porsche 996/997 bore scoring
Decisions made around Porsche 996/997 engine bore scoring issues can also show man maths at work. Several of the Porsche 996 and 997s I value for insurance have had their engines rebuilt due to bore scoring and some of these cars now stand their owners close to £30k, while the cars are worth maybe two-thirds of that.
I admire people who choose to repair their cars, but part of me feels the pain of the money they have lost by sticking with them. Owners may react by saying that the failure rate of these engines is very low and only unlucky people get caught by the problem, but I don’t know anyone that spends a lot of time around the water-cooled cars who feels the risk is low enough to take the plunge into 996 or 997 ownership.
The 996 C4S is one of my favourite 911s and I’ve considered a purchase several times, but the risk is too great for me. It would hurt to spend £18k on a 996 and then have another £8-10k to spend on an engine rebuild somewhere down the road. This is a classic example of how humans allow the perception of risk to deny the potential rewards.
In his book “The Creative Negotiator”, Steven Kozicki points out that many (if not most) of us are ruled by loss aversion, where avoiding a loss is more preferable than making a gain. When loss averse people consider the purchase of a Porsche 996 or early 997, the risk of potential engine failure and the subsequent financial loss outweighs all other aspects: we gloss over the joy we might get from driving a beautiful, affordable 911.
It’s a magnified version of what is seen on the Honda: I lean towards maintaining the old one (i.e. risking £1500) than putting £5k into buying a newer one, even though they are likely to cost the same to run over three years and I will end up with a lower-mileage, higher-spec daily driver that needs no work at all. When one considers what those benefits might be worth in pound notes, the decision not to risk does not entirely add up.
Loss Aversion in Litigation
Most of the court cases I work on involve a perceived financial loss. All of them go through mediation to try and find a settlement, and those sessions are always very interesting. Even when there is a strong case that will likely result in a strong judgement in their favour, people will often settle well below the potential court award if continuing is felt to involve even a modest loss.
The video below illustrates our innate tendencies for loss aversion. Even when the expected value of a risk (a bet in this case) is a return of £500 with the odds against success of a mere 1 in 2,300, most people will refuse to take the risk.
Those who have been on the fence regarding the purchase of a Porsche 996 or 997 should watch out for man maths and the power of our hardwired aversion to loss. We’re only here once and it’s important for our mental wellbeing to take a risk now and then. As Goethe said: “boldness has genius, power and magic in it”. I may go and see that new CR-V after all.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
I spent part of yesterday writing a blog for the Classic Retrofit website covering Patrick Motorsport’s latest project car: a 1986 Porsche hot rod 911 Carrera 3.2 backdated to ’73 RSR style.
Originally supplied as a factory black 911, Patrick retained the original colour and went with blue as an accent shade inside and out. The blue interior is all about impact and takes zero prisoners. The result is a head-turning build that took the Sponsor’s Choice award at the recent Werks Reunion in the Corral de Tierra Country Club, Monterey.
Jonny’s electric air conditioning for air-cooled Porsche 911s was part of the spec for the award-winning build, hence the blog on his website. Patrick Motorsports did a video of the A/C in action, showing a reduction of 30°C at the dash vents versus the ambient temperature. No doubt that was impressive, but the additional spec of the car looks equally impressive.
The builder went through a rough spec on a video shot at the Werks Reunion prize giving. It apparently runs a turbocharged engine, later transmission (I presume this means G50), big brake conversion and more but if the story of what sounds like an interesting build is available online, I couldn’t find it. I think I understand why this might be.
We can all allow what is everyday in our world to feel normal and unworthy of mention. As we do more cool stuff on top of cool stuff, the cool stuff becomes normalised and starts to feel old hat and uninteresting to others. If you were a chef and knew how to poach the perfect egg, poached eggs would feel boring to you. Egg plus boiling water: what else is there to say? But there is lots more to say: poaching the perfect egg was a challenge that took me boxes of eggs to master. Cooking is simple when you know where to start, but that does not mean that a Michelin chef explaining how to poach the perfect egg is something no one wants to know more about.
I have now been writing about Porsches for over fifteen years and have spent most of my working days with at least one 911. They feel very normal to me, so I am probably guilty of skipping across stories that others who don’t spend as much time around these cars would find quite interesting. Clients who have been in this game much longer than I have can be quite blasé about their work on road car restorations or engine rebuilds, but these things are always of interest to owners and they are always worth mentioning.
The weight of life’s other projects – raising kids, maintaining investments, running a business and keeping clients happy – sometimes makes it inevitable that we will take things for granted. Mindfulness and other practices of increasing awareness can help us fight this and focus on what is important, but there are not enough hours in the day to do everything, including enjoying the fruits of our labour.
If your 911, 944, Boxster or GT3 has begin to feel normal and perhaps even boring, stop and think about that. These cars are definitely not boring, so have you just normalised ownership? If you’ve managed to keep Porsche ownership fresh across decades of ownership, how have you done it? I would be interested to know your tips and techniques.
To learn more about my work and commission my valuation insights or content skills, you can:
The most irritating thing about watching Youtube on a smart TV with a slightly clunky UI is scrolling past endless suggestions from promoted channels. Five things new motorbike riders don’t know, top five disturbing church videos, top five lowest jet fighter flypasts and so on. Porsche also latched on to top fives a while back and, while this format is not my favourite, they have buried some nuggets in there.
The last Top Five feature on the Porsche Youtube channel was Wolfgang Porsche’s Top Five Porsches. Filmed in the bright, spacious garage at Zell am See, the programme follows Ferry’s youngest son (above, with Hans Klauser and his dad at Le Mans 1956) through five of his favourites. The garage is packed with special cars, but his choices seem very authentic, rather than a list from some corporate PR type. Forgive my ever-present inner cynic.
Porsche 993 Turbo S
Dr Porsche’s first choice is a 993 Turbo S. 345 Turbo S models were built from 1997 onwards, with just 26 examples made in RHD. The Turbo S had a 450bhp twin-turbo flat-six and shot from 0-60 in 3.6 seconds. Distinguished by several features including air intakes in the rear quarters, yellow brake calipers and a unique rear wing, all Turbo S models were built by the Exclusive department. The cars feel pretty special inside and have become highly desirable.
Wolfgang Porsche 993 Turbo S
“The 911 was the successor to the 356,” says Wolfgang. “All the diehards who drove a 356 said “How awful, what kind of a new car do you call this? This can’t be right.” The 911 has now proven itself in fifty years and has forever been undergoing further development. The diehards quietened down and there are many who now drive a 911 instead of the 356.
“My brother Ferdinand Alexander created the aesthetic design and always insisted that it should be a puristic design. He was always the one who said that cars shouldn’t have many frills. The family green was my father’s favourite colour: he had almost all his cars in green.
“The 993 Turbo S is one of the last to have an air-cooled engine. And for this reason it also has a good sound. It’s a good car in any case.”
Wolfgang’s body language when he talks about the sound – a broad emerging smile and a quick glance to the top left – speaks volumes. Big smiles are hard to fake and looking up is a sign of thinking. Looking up and left is said to show information being processed and related to a past experience or emotion. Watch for this when someone talks about a car or a bike they are trying to sell you. If they never look up and left, they really didn’t like this machine. It’s one clue that you can do some damage with your bids!
As an opening choice, the 993 was a good one. I liked the dig at the 356 crowd: socially correct Porsche banter. Hang around 356 boys long enough and you’ll learn that they all love a bit of 356 vs 911 chat: Wolfgang has clearly spent plenty of time in both camps.
The next choice is a Carrera GT and the third is a Panamera Hybrid. “My father would surely have wanted this car because he always said “the newest car is always the best.” Whenever I added an old car to my collection, he always said “why are you driving such an old car? The newer one is always the better one.””
Cars four and five get to the real meat in the sandwich. Four is the America Roadster. Finished in Stone Grey (akin to the Chalk colour chosen for the Panamera Hybrid), the 1952 America Roadster has a 70 horsepower in just 600 kilograms of aluminium bodyshell. “It’s a proper sports car from the ’50s.”
1962 Porsche 356 Carrera 2000 GS
The final car chosen is a 1962 Porsche 356 Carrera GS: Stuttgart’s ultimate performance car of the time. Fitted with the 130 bhp 2-litre four-cam engine, the Carrera 2 cost a fortune when new and just over 400 were manufactured. The cars are now highly desirable: good examples can fetch $350-400k or more at auction.
The Carrera 2 had the Type 578 engine, which had a bigger bore and stroke compared to the earlier 1.5-litre Type 547 Fuhrmann four-cam. The new engine offered more torque but it was also much larger than the earlier motor and hung down lower in the chassis.
“Underneath the skin is a proper sports car,” says Wolfgang. “The ‘Carrera’ in the name means that it’s a very sporty car from this model range. It’s got 130 hp and, in my eyes, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing because you don’t realise how powerful it is at first sight.
“The only thing that gives it away is the low-slung exhaust and this tail piece: that’s why this car is also nicknamed ‘the pregnant cat’. This car has a fantastic sound – the exhaust is simply great and the power is great. The Irish Green is one of my favourite colours.”
The Porsche Top Five videos are a slightly off-kilter explosion of brash graphics, choppy edits and Hollywood voiceover, but there is no mistaking Wolfgang’s obvious delight in the cars and what it means to own and enjoy these things: it’s all right there in one cheeky grin when he drops the pregnant cat.
Wolfgang Porsche 356 Carrera GS – Enstall Classic 2017
To me, it seems like the 356 Carrera might be his actual favourite. He’s used it on at least one Enstall Classic (above) and it is right at the point where the 911 kicks in. Perhaps no 911 could ever be as special to one of Ferry’s sons as the ultimate road-going expression of one of their father’s original cars. I can sort of understand that, if it’s the case.
Watch the video below and check out what else is hiding in the garage: 904, 959 and a row of 356 Roadsters. A sports car guy, for sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCzrSaaWd_0
Wolfgang Porsche: Top 5 Porsches
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Ferdinand Piëch (above right with his grandfather, Ferdinand Porsche) has died at the age of 82. Justly famous for many successes across a glittering automotive career, Piëch was a polarising character. I can’t think of one other person – certainly not in the world of engineering – who provokes such extremes of delight and derision.
The French writer, André Gide (1869-1951) wrote: “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947, Gide lived this idea to its absolute maximum and Piëch was also in tune.
Born in Vienna in 1937 to Louise (Porsche) and Anton Piëch, Ferdinand graduated from the ETH Zurich in 1962 with a degree in mechanical engineering. His thesis was on the subject of developing a Formula 1 engine. That same year, Porsche built an F1 engine (designed by Hans Mezger) and put it in the 804, the body of which was designed by Piëch’s cousin, Butzi Porsche. The car won the 1962 French Grand Prix.
After joining Porsche in 1963 – the year Butzi was feted as the designer of the Porsche 911 – Piëch was appointed Head of R&D in 1968 and became Porsche’s Technical Director in 1971. This did not sit well in some quarters. A year later, the infighting at Porsche became so overwhelming that Ferry passed a boardroom resolution stating no family member should be involved with day-to-day Porsche operations. The second generation was exiled.
Though Piëch is best known for post-Porsche achievements at Audi and Volkswagen, his first freelance engineering assignment kept him in Stuttgart. Mercedes-Benz chief, Joachim Zahn, brought Piëch in to work on the 3-litre five-cylinder OM-600 diesel engine that debuted in the 1975 W115 240D. The oil burner earned a reputation as one of the greatest engines ever developed. Stock OM 5-cylinders have covered over 1 million kilometres without major repair and tuned OMs can make more than 1,000 horsepower.
After Mercedes, Piëch took the pivotal decision to join Audi as a special projects engineer in 1972. My best friend at school was the son of a Volkswagen/Audi dealer and I vividly remember early-seventies Audis being notably run-of-the-mill. Piëch would change all that.
Turning his gift for technical innovation up to eleven, Piëch personified what was later trademarked as Audi’s brand motto: “Vorsprung durch Technik” (advancement through technology). He led development of the first-ever five-cylinder petrol engine, before adding a turbocharger and building the perfect platform for it: the all-conquering Audi Quattro.
Few products can match the Quattro’s effect on the meaning of cars: the ones that come close usually had Piëch’s involvement (hello Veyron). Launched in 1977, the Quattro was the equivalent of a punk rock band hijacking a bus full of car engineers. For rally fans like me, the greatest motorsport moments of the late 1970s and early 1980s are photos like this:
Piëch’s hits kept coming, with the first turbodiesel engine. TDI became the power of choice for decades. He repeated the Quattro effect by building the perfect home for the TDI engine: the C3 Audi 100. Keeping the car’s innovative aerodynamics a secret by developing the styling away from Audi HQ, Piëch’s slippery 100 set new benchmarks, including a drag coefficient of just 0.30. Completely out of character for a three-box saloon, everything about the car – from the door handles, to the seats, to the feel of the switches – turned Audi’s brand image on its head. I had a much-loved 100 Avant and the 200 Turbo Avant of that era remains one of the most exciting cars I have driven. The later Audi 80 TDI was also fantastic to drive.
In 1993, Piëch joined Volkswagen. The carmaker had just posted the greatest loss in its history, but Piëch had a plan. He introduced single platforms to underpin models across individual brands that could be restyled or redeveloped to suit individual brand characters. The concept brought incredible economies of scale: two-thirds of the parts in each platform-based model were shared across brands. This revolutionised profit margins. During his nine years as CEO (before a further fifteen years as VW Chairman), Volkswagen went from losses of €1 billion to profits of €2.6 billion and became an automotive empire of twelve brands including Scania, Bentley and, most controversially, Porsche.
“Of course I am proud of my grandfather (Ferdinand Porsche),” said Piëch in his autobiography. “But I never felt it my mission to uphold his greatness, nor could I do anything about media suggestions that I suffered from an inferiority complex.”
An inferiority complex would have been fairly low maintenance compared to what actually happened. Piëch’s engineering prowess was matched by an appetite for political intrigue and dramatic events. “It is not possible to take a company to the top by focusing on the highest level of harmony,” is how he put it.
Father to thirteen children by four different women, including Marlene Porsche (his cousin Gerard’s wife of the time), if Ferdinand wanted something to happen, it got done, regardless of consequences. “First and foremost, I always saw myself as a product person, and relied on gut instinct for market demand. Business and politics never distracted me from the core of our mission: to develop and make attractive cars.”
Porsche and VW Tributes
Even those Piëch battled appreciate his achievements. “A gifted car and engine developer whose attention to detail is limitless,” said former Porsche CEO, Wendelin Weideking. “Nothing left the production line that Piëch had not personally closely inspected. However, Piëch was not consistent: it was always a high risk gamble to guess if you had his support.”
“There is not enough time here to sufficiently pay homage to him,” said Hans Dieter Pötsch, Piech’s successor as VW chairman. “The short version is personally I think Ferdinand Piëch set unforgettable milestones in automotive industry and he played a material role in the existence of the Volkswagen Group in its current state.”
“The life’s work of my brother goes above and beyond the companies he worked for,” said Dr. Hans Michel Piëch, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Porsche SE. “He shaped the German car industry more than any other. And he was closely related to the employees of the Volkswagen Group, in both good times and in bad. Our thoughts are with his wife Ursula and his children. We mourn with them as we mourn with the employees of the Volkswagen Group and all car-enthusiasts, whose lives Ferdinand K. Piëch enriched with his passion.”
RIP Ferdinand Piëch
This morning’s papers all carry obituaries for Ferdinand Piëch and the usual perspectives are present: genius engineer, egomaniacal oligarch, destructive drama queen and the rest. I never met the man, so can only go by what I know: his products. From the air-cooled racing spaceship: the Porsche 917, to the five-cylinder Audi engines, Quattro, the Audi 100 and the Volkswagen XL-1, which was inspired by his 1-Litre-Auto, the products of Ferdinand Piëch are an eternal delight. I will continue to enjoy them and the connection they afford to one of the great minds in automotive history.
Ferdinand Piëch’s talent for technical innovation was fuelled directly by his grandfather’s legacy. The ideas that flowed into production as a result brought twentieth century automotive engineering to an entirely new level. The passing of Ferdinand Piëch is literally the end of an era: our collective futures will miss his unique contribution.
Away from the dramatic sale of the ex-Otto Mathe Type 64 Volkswagen at Monterey, the RM Sotheby’s auction gave us a good insight into how Porsche prices are doing, with several record prices for collectable Porsches offered for sale.
Record auction price for Carrera GT
The 2005 Porsche Carrera GT was not the most expensive Porsche sold by RM Sotheby’s in California, but the final price of $1.193 million including buyer’s premium for GT number 1021 established a new world record for Carrera GT at auction. Looking at the spec before the sale, it was obvious that the bidding would be energetic, as the car ticked all the right boxes including:
Low mileage of just 265 miles
Paint-to-Sample in a great colour: Arancio Boreallis/Metallic Orange
Huge options list totalling over $37k
Recent $25k service
In a world of identikit silver GTs, this car was the ultimate antidote. It rightly took home a pretty penny and established a new benchmark for the model at auction. By comparison, a two-owner Carrera GT in Silver with just 5,200 miles from new sold for over $400k less.
Another Porsche that took full advantage of the holy trinity of low mileage, low owners and paint to sample with Exclusive interior was the very last 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 Speedster. Presented with just 260 miles from new, and finished in custom Cinnabar/Zinnobar Red with beige suede trim (ooh), the polished Fuchs on chassis number 173786 couldn’t stop the car rocketing to $379k including premium. This must be some sort of record.
Water-cooled 911s also did well. The 2011 Porsche 997 GT3 RS 4.0 that changed hands at the 70th Anniversary sale in Atlanta during October 2018 returned to the market in Monterey.
Having sold at auction less than a year ago for $566k, it went for almost $100k more in Monterey: $665k including premium. One may view this either as 4-litres taking off in California through 2019 or Atlanta in winter having been the wrong place to sell this RS. It was a good result for a 4-litre RS either way, especially given that the car cannot be registered in CA due to smog laws.
Porsches that failed to sell in Monterey
Twenty-one Porsches were offered for sale at Monterey and only three failed to sell: the aforementioned Type 64 (sort of a Porsche), a 1973 RS with a bunch of Japanese history and a 1996 Porsche 993 GT2 that had previously changed hands at Amelia Island 2018 for over $1.4 million, but failed to find a new home at Monterey. Nothing too surprising.
Other cars that sold below expectations (my expectations, at least) all had restoration in common. When it comes to buying old cars, there’s still no substitute for originality.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
