“I suppose the German side wants to keep everything in control, and the Irish side wants to wreak havoc,” claims Michael Fassbender. I’m not so sure about that. When I am with Germans, I’m generally the one keeping things under control, while the rest run amok. I guess it depends on the Germans you know.
Weg mit ihren Köpfen
The Irish missionary Kilian went to Germany in 689 AD. It was a big mistake. When Kilian suggested that a local lady was not the most suitable bride for a newly-baptised duke, on the basis that she had once been married to the duke’s now-dead brother, the Germans chopped off Kilian’s head, and those of both his companions.
But times have changed. When Fassbender smashes his GT3 Cup nose-first into the Hockenheim pit wall right in front of the Porsche crew, they run through what went wrong and roll out a spare car. A few weeks later, he has another sizeable accident and another spare car is wheeled out. German-Irish relations have definitely evolved.
Anyway, this story is all about an actor en route to Le Mans. Yes, that old chestnut is back, except this time it is rather more interesting (for us Irish, at least). After a two-year learning curve racing Ferraris, Michael Fassbender is training with Porsche for a shot at the 24-Heures. His teacher, Felipe Fernandez Laser, is a VLN winner with Frikadelli Racing and should be capable of helping a decent amateur find their way up to the level of a quick GTE-AM driver.
So far, Fassbender appears to show decent potential. A ninth place finish in a Porsche Sports Cup race is no mean feat for a rookie and there are flashes of speed all the way through Porsche’s latest Youtube series, following Fassbender’s Road to Le Mans. The biggest test will be whether he can put it all together, but this is man knows what it’s like to do 10,000 hours.
Heidelberg to Aghadoe
Fassbender arrived into the world just 100 kms north of Stuttgart in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemburg on April 2, 1977. His German father, Josef, was a chef and his Irish mother, Adele, raised the kids. The pair had met while working in London but ended up moving to Germany. Adamant that the Republic would be a better environment for their kids to grow up in, Adele convinced Josef to move the family to Ireland. So, when Michael was two, they settled just outside Killarney, in County Kerry.
Killarney was rally central in the 1980s, so young Michael got into Group B. Then followed the age of Michael Schumacher and, as a young German who spoke the mother tongue fluently, Fassy followed Schumi: he’s often now found on F1 grids with Crazy Liam Cunningham and the pair met Schumi at one such weekend.
The youngster struggled to find some direction until he discovered drama in school. He immersed himself in acting and staged Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ over two nights for the craic. He eventually moved to London to study the craft. Things were tough in the smoke and Fassbender was living on a few quid a week, working two minimum wage jobs and battling exhaustion to do as many auditions as possible. It all took its toll and Michael quit drama school to go it alone. It would not be the smoothest path to success.
When he quit his bar job after landing a part in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Band of Brothers’, the boss advised him to keep in touch, as the work might come in handy again. Fassbender laughed it off, feeling he had hit the big time, but, after a spell in LA trying to crack Hollywood, he ended up back in the bar.
Bit parts on British TV followed, leading to more and more screen time and the emergence of a fan base amongst critics. Eventually, things took off: he delivered an exceptional performance as IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, in the film Hunger and then Tarantino came back into his life, casting the German speaker as a British spy in Inglourious Basterds.
While the actor-turned-racer premise may initially feel like Fassbender is buying his way into racing and walking in footsteps we’ve all seen before (not that there’s owt wrong with that), there is more to this story than the same old thing and Porsche has scored big with Youtube viewers. Part 1 alone has 700k views and Porsche’s channel has 800k subscribers, so that should tell you all about the reach of this.
I am also a fan of the documentary: the way this is shot is just perfect. Fassbender is given the full expression of his Irish upbringing with no bleeps or edits and we see things exactly as his driver coach sees them. “I’m so bummed about the fuckin’ smash there behind the safety car,” is Fassbender’s first line in part 1. It’s hard to resist parts two and three after that.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
I caught the first Porsche Supercup race of the Mexico Grand Prix weekend tonight. While I haven’t missed a Grand Prix in over ten years, it’s been a while since I watched a Supercup race. Unsurprisingly, not much has changed since last time.
Michael Ammermüller has been a smooth operator since coming to Supercup in 2012. A former Red Bull Racing test driver, he raced single seaters before Porsches, so, when he does not start on pole, he has a way of getting to the front without inflicting too much collateral damage en route. This is not the Supercup norm.
The first race in Mexico exemplified the contrast between the man from Passau in Bavaria and most of the rest, when the championship leader took an early lead and wasted no time building a gap. Meanwhile, the young hot shots who have vied for Weissach’s attention and championship honours all year were dropping bodywork and running miles beyond track limits to ultimately slow each other down and finish well off the pace.
Holding on to positions by cutting corners and chicanes is amateur stuff: they could all do with watching how the champion brought his third title home. It was a surprise that the race director did not pull them up a bit harder. I guess that is probably fair enough in the title decider for a one-make championship but, if drivers knew they would be penalised for running off track and gaining an advantage, then they might drive accordingly.
Ammermüller is now just two races off a new record of wins in the series and has matched René Rast for total championships won. Four would match Patrick Huismann and five would set a new benchmark. Onwards and upwards, Michael.
Porsche Supercup renews F1® contract to 2022
Porsche recently renewed its contract to run Supercup races as part of Grand Prix weekends up to and including 2022. “We’re proud to forge ahead with this close and long-established partnership,” said Fritz Enzinger. “Formula 1® offers an exclusive setting with a unique flair. This fascination and high media importance represent an ideal overall package for our racing series.”
Supercup has been part of F1’s support programme since its debut season in 1993. Famous and fashionable circuits such as Spa-Francorchamps, Monza and Monte Carlo are regular fixtures on the racing calendar of the international one-make cup. Drivers compete in 485 hp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars: the racing vehicles are technically identical, as are the tyres and the fuel, guaranteeing equal chances for all.
“We are pleased to extend our long-standing partnership with Porsche for a further three years,” said Ross Brawn, F1’s Motorsport Director. “This one-make series provides some of the most spectacular racing of any series and contributes significantly to the show that’s on offer over a Grand Prix weekend. Furthermore, in the thirty years during which it has run alongside Formula 1, the Porsche Supercup has provided an excellent launch pad for many drivers who have also made their mark in international races at all levels.”
Porsche works driver, Earl Bamber, is so far the only Supercup champion (2015) who has gone on to win a World Endurance Driver’s Championship title (2017), although 2014 champ, Nicki Thiim, did win a World Endurance GT Driver’s Championship title with Aston in 2016.
René Rast was one of the most thrilling Supercup champions to watch. He has gone on to win the 24 Hours of both Spa and the Nürburgring, as well as DTM titles in 2017 and 2019. Double champion, Richard Westbrook (2006/7) went on to win the 2009 FIA GT2 championship, while 2001 champion Jorg Bergmeister won the 2003 Daytona 24 Hours and the 2006 Rolex Grand-Am championship.
In recent years, the Supercup series has become a bit of a proving ground for Porsche Juniors, with Sven Muller winning the 2016 title and Dennis Olsen running Ammermüller hard in 2017. I like to see cut of the Juniors in Supercup, but it does give me a thrill to see a proper gentleman-racer-with a-day-job like Ammermüller take the title. His trademark speed and class is what Supercup is all about. What a great job.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
My last four-hour flight to Lanzarote was a breeze, thanks to a great chat with Joe, a spritely seventy year-old parked alongside. After early retirement from an engineering career, Joe dived into volunteer work before joining a local friend’s burger van business. They threw themselves into growing the business and now run the bars at some of the world’s biggest music festivals and sports events.
What struck me most was not the stories my seat neighbour told, or his success, but the enthusiasm and energy that shined when he spoke about life. He was still pushing hard. The meeting put me in mind of another energetic 70 year-old that I’d read about: former Porsche CEO, Arno Bohn, interviewed by Keiron Fennelly for a story in Panorama magazine.
Born in Rheinfelden in March 1947, Arno Bohn was Porsche boss from 1990 to 1992. While CEO, he famously wrote a letter to Ferdinand Piëch suggesting that Piëch (grandson of Ferdinand Porsche) should retire from the Porsche supervisory board. This was in response to a letter from Piëch calling on Ferry (son of Ferdinand Porsche) to resign, as the company was verging on bankruptcy. The interview contained several insights into Porsche culture of the time, including factors behind the mission creep which sent costs spiralling on projects like the 959, the cancelled 984 (924 replacement) and 989: the aborted four-door 911.
Bohn’s predecessor, Peter Schutz, extended the 911 line and presided over 944 development, while his successor, Wendelin Wiedeking, oversaw the combined Boxster/996 platform (developed by Horst Marchart, according to Bohn) and the launch of Cayenne. Bohn was the bridge between the two trajectories: not an easy or comfortable role.
‘The car that saved Porsche’
Porsche retrospectives have a tendency to rate CEOs and the cars they help launch on the grand scale of company saviours, but that’s not how I see it.
Running your own business is all about ups and downs. When things are up, you reinvest, ploughing resources back in to product development, training new people and adding new capabilities. The cost of this work takes a balance sheet down – often close to breaking point – but the rewards of clever investment pay off in the long run. Keeping said “long run” to the absolute minimum is part of the role of a good CEO.
There are countless assertions as to how the 924 and Boxster saved Porsche, but it was largely the work that went into these cars that caused the balance sheet falls which were later reversed when the cars came to market. These projects start long before the CEOs credited with the product successes. One could say that there are no ‘cars that saved Porsche’. Instead, Stuttgart ploughed profits into these cars to widen its reach and build a better corporate future.
Arno Bohn’s Porsche legacy
Recruited from the IT industry, Bohn was used to quick product development times and tried to push the same through at Porsche, but his hands were apparently tied by longstanding inertia and in-house politics: no surprise to anyone who has studied the company’s story.
While Bohn was not an experienced car-making man, he’s said to have been a very good listener and that letter to Piëch – a powerful figure who helped bring him to Porsche – shows he was true to himself and brave when it mattered. The politics may have stitched him up a bit but, as commander-in-chief through a critical period, and the last CEO to leave Porsche as a fully independent operation, he’s earned a place in history.
Bohn is the link between Schutz and Wiedeking and his experience through the final years of Porsche independence is a fascinating window into what was going on. Bohn notes that Ferry was keen to build a four-door Porsche and, while some 989 prototype angles make it look like the unholy union of a Ford Mondeo with a 911 Carrera, there is perhaps is a slight regret that the project never took off.
Last year, I sold a Porsche Panamera V6 PDK for a friend of mine: a 2010 model in perfect condition with less than 50k miles. It took a few weeks to find a new home and eventually went for just over £20k: a bargain for the quality and engineering contained. Turns out that Arno Bohn also now drives a Panamera.
Had Bohn managed to introduce the 989 and helped to find it a place in the luxury market, giving the Panamera a slightly earlier start point and more engaging origin story, his legacy and that of Panamera might be rather more strident. In any case, he merits remembering as more than Weideking in waiting.
A version of this story first appeared as my column in GT Porsche magazine, February 2019. I now write a column in BMW Car magazine.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or to engage with me in other ways, you can:
Sweden’s Team Tidö Race4Health has entered three Porsche 911s on this year’s East African Safari Classic Rally. The lead car features the one and only Stig Blomqvist, with the other two driven by Race4Health patron, Roger Samuelsson, and a new man: Trey Lockey, from Miami. Asked to write some driver bios for the Safari Rally souvenir programme, I put in a call to Team Tidö chief, David von Schinkel (above), to learn about the first non-Swede in a Team Tidö car.
David is a passionate racer who founded Team Tidö in 2008 to race in Formula Renault Scandinavia and the Swedish Touring Car Championship. The team later moved into historic motorsport, running several historic 911s in the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix, on the Midnight Sun Rally and on the Safari.
Blomqvist won the Safari Classic Rally in Race4Health colours back in 2015, and Björn Waldegård also drove for the team on several occasions, including on the 2013 Safari Rally. Björn rolled his car that year, but it was later reshelled at Tuthills. Now part of Team Tidö’s car and motorcycle collection, the crumpled shell hangs at Tidö Slott: David’s family castle.
Viking Siege Mentality
I’ve done a fair few miles on road trips in Sweden. My uncle (another writer) read English at Trinity College, where he met a Swedish girl. She took him home to Stockholm, they got married and had kids. My dad never needed much excuse for a road trip, so visiting his Swedish relations in Stockholm was perfect. That’s how we spent one excellent summer touring through Finland and Sweden, to the Arctic Circle and back.
One thing you soon learn when driving through Sweden is that the country is not short of castles. This came from bitter experience: the Vikings loved a siege and even held Paris under siege for a year. You were nowhere in Sweden if you weren’t within reach of a fortress, so there are hundreds of castles, chateaux and palaces across the country. Known collectively as Slott (castle), many are still private residences. Tidö Slott falls into this group.
Photo by Anders P [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
Swedish Castles: Tidö Slott
Tidö Slott is one of Sweden’s best-preserved castles from its age of high empire, spanning 1610 to 1720. Axel Oxenstierna – King Gustaf II Adolf’s Lord High Chancellor and widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Swedish history – built the castle between 1625 and 1641, with the help of architects, Simon de la Vallée and Nicodemus Tessin.
Paris-born de la Vallée (whose father was architect to Louis XIII) was brought to Sweden by the head of the army and appointed Royal Architect. Tidö Slott was one of his first works in Sweden, and Stockholm palaces followed. Tessin the Elder was another regal favourite, whose most famous work is the Drottningholm Palace: still home to the Swedish royal family.
Tidö Slott was built in a Dutch Renaissance style. A huge four-wing complex set around a central courtyard, the castle was owned by Oxenstierna’s descendants for two hundred years, until they sold it in 1840. The next fifty years were a time of decline, until Carl-David von Schinkel acquired the castle in 1890. Four generations of the von Schinkel family have since grown up in Tidö Slott. The castle was private until 1971, when it was opened to the public. Today, it serves as a home, conference centre and meeting place.
Inheriting a castle – becoming its custodian for a time – must be an incredible privilege, but it also brings with it a potentially crushing responsibility. My own house was built in the late 1800s and would fit into Tido Slott many times over. I know how much work my little house takes to maintain, so to manage the burden of an inherited estate, and then extend one’s responsibility to changing the lives of the less fortunate in distant countries is incredibly worthy. If one accepts some of the data available, that sort of extension is a rare thing in Sweden.
Sweden in the Global Giving Index
A 2010 study by the Charities Aid Foundation covered almost 200,000 people in 153 countries. The survey included questions on personal charitable donations, volunteering and helping strangers: how much of each were people doing? The answers were averaged and each country was given a score, ranking the nation’s ‘charitability’ in the World Giving Index.
Australia topped the list, with 70% of Australians giving to charity, 38% volunteering for an organisation in the previous month and 64% helping a stranger in the same timeframe. New Zealand (68/41/63) and Ireland (72/35/60) followed Australia. Sweden (52/12/47) was in the low 40s, placing it behind Chile, Somalia and Afghanistan in the list of giving nations. Several European countries ranked lower, but, across Scandinavia, Sweden was lowest.
I found this data at odds with my perceptions of Sweden and my experience of Swedish philanthropy. To me, the nation represents the pinnacle of social conscience. Sweden ranks first in the world for press freedom, fourth for democracy and lack of corruption and tenth for global peace and global competitiveness. Sweden also ranks twelfth in the world for Human Development: a combined index of life expectancy, education and per capita income.
The importance of a good education is ingrained in Swedish consciousness and the power of education to drive national progress underpins Team Tidö’s charitable programme.
“If you can’t see, you can’t go to school”
“If you can’t see, you can’t read. If you can’t read, then you can’t go to school,” says David, who was inspired to develop a charitable arm to Team Tidö Race4Health through conversations with the late Björn Waldegård. Hailed as a sporting legend in Africa, the serial Safari winner had limitless compassion. Long term co-driver, Hans Thorzelius, remembers how Björn would save clothes and shoes from his kids and hand them out in Africa: he wanted people to see that he knew, and that he cared.
The most used greeting amongst Zulus is sawubona, meaning “I see you, you are important to me and I value you.” It is a deep and spiritual blessing, bestowed upon people one cares about. It voices respect for each other as individuals, with all our unique scars and flaws. Race4Health embraces this spirit with its eyewear redistribution programme.
Overseen by opticians from Balsta Optik, who travel with the rally as part of the team, the eyewear distribution scheme collects thousands of pairs of donated spectacles in Sweden and redistributes them to people in remote communities along the rally route. Team Tidö Race4Health established this project in 2013 and has since restored clear vision to hundreds of people with impaired sight in Kenya and Tanzania.
While I was on the phone to David yesterday, he sent me a link to a story in the Economist, discussing a recent World Health Organisation report estimating that, globally, at least 2.2 billion people have impaired vision. Some one billion people have an eyesight problem that is either preventable (e.g transmitted due to infection) or that could be addressed with spectacles. While David does not imagine that the programme will ever distribute a billion pairs of spectacles, he has seen with his own eyes that every person helped lifts the rest of society.
Anders and Ann-Marie Århlin are the opticians who travel with Tidö in Africa. Their first trip to the rally was in 2015, and they’ve been coming back ever since. “We don’t have a special group who we target,” says Ann-Marie. “We try to distribute to as many people as possible in the villages we visit. It is often quite chaotic as they don’t really have the same understanding of queuing that we do, but it usually goes well.
“What is most satisfying about our work with Race4Health is seeing how the help gets directly to those who need it. I have been to many African countries before and seen how aid organisations can suffer with problems due to bureaucracy or other hindrances. Direct help in situ is the best option: we immediately see the difference it makes to the people.”
Race4Change: Race4Health
Team Tidö Race4Health’s projects in Africa follow in the tyre tracks of Race4Change: an organisation led by the Canadian-American, Dr Steven Funk, who I worked with on a Safari Rally campaign in 2011. Funk’s work put microfinance at its centre, offering a hand up to budding entrepreneurs and giving them “skin in the game”. As an economic migrant once upon a time, Funk’s pitch had profound resonation with me. Race4Health takes a different approach, but the end result may be even more powerful.
Having spoken to Anders and Ann-Marie and seen the difference their work makes in person, I find the whole story incredibly powerful. Team Tidö Race4Health returns to Safari next month and, while all eyes may be focused on Blomqvist out front, the real value of Race4Health’s African vision will be happening way off the leader board: out in the bush, right where it’s needed.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support my blog or to engage with me in other ways, you can:
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.
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I came back in from walking Ted the Jack Russell tonight and plonked myself down in front of the TV for an hour of Youtube education just as Porsche uploaded a pretty cool video following the Taycan down the production line. The feature is just how I like these things: no narration, just a nicely edited visual documentary that allows the unfolding story to breathe and invites the viewer to fill in the blanks. Scroll down to watch it.
How It’s Made: Old Guy TV
Judging by the success of channels such as MyMechanics (943k subscribers) and Rescue and Restore (725k subs), more than a few of us like this silent movie treatment with plenty of silent space to watch stuff being made and repaired. If you’re one of those people, then this Taycan video will be right up your street. It’s 29 minutes long and there is no audio soundtrack of any description. Just sit back, press play and enjoy.
A few thoughts came to mind while watching this film on what passes for a big screen around here.
Firstly, the volume is on, but the silence is golden. The robots are silent, there are not too many people around, the lack of ear defenders show this is a silent environment. The loudest nose is when the finished Taycan hits the dyno rollers for its first indoor road test and the tyres begin to roll. That silent film aspect is striking.
Secondly, this is clearly a brand new plant designed for the future. The lighting is impeccable, the surfaces are unmarked and the workers present themselves in robot-like perfection. One is struck by the inference that this car factory is a first: “it is like no car factory you have ever seen before, because what we’re building is 100% clean.” Yet it is built on the site of the first Porsche production line from seven decades ago. Progress in action.
The mix of workers is a little surprising: mostly young white males, all seemingly straight from the barber shop in the corner. I guess many of those shown are new to Porsche, so they have never built a petrol-engined car before and they perhaps never will. Will they ever even own a car? Living in a city with great transport links, I’m not sure I would bother.
The apparent lack of old hands amongst the workforce, implies that there is no “this is how we do it in the other workshop”. On the one hand, I like the feel of that freshness but, on the other, the joy of working with older mechanics was a big attraction when I started my apprenticeship in the mid-1980s. If the decision to keep the new car/new workforce separate was a deliberate one, that is interesting.
Finally, the big message is: LOOK AT THE CONTRAST. Gone are the grizzled welders in a darkened warehouse, gone the rows of German metalworkers beating the bodywork with hammer and dolly, gone are the painters, sent mad by solvent abuse, gone their crazy comrades, gluing vinyl and leather to the roof and side panels with industrial strength adhesive. Gone is the music of engines being fired up for the first time, gone are the fumes from the flat-six boxers, starting as they mean to go on. On the one hand, I like it. On the other, I still quite like it.
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