While Matthias Müller hits the halfway point of his first week as Volkswagen’s latest Chief Executive, his employers have appointed the new chairman of Porsche AG. Forty-seven year-old Doctor Oliver Blume takes the helm at Stuttgart: a move that has been applauded by many including the Chairman of the Works Council. Will putting the young production chief in charge prove the right way to go?
No doubt Blume is a capable professional, but he has only been at Porsche for two years. Graduating in mechanical engineering from Braunschweig in the early 1990s, Blume headed straight for Audi, where he progressed through the ranks to lead the bodyshell engineering team on the Audi A3 before spending time at the University of Shanghai.
Staying with Audi, Blume led development of a new Audi plant, shifting sideways to SEAT in 2004 and eventually helping to shift production of the Audi A3 to a SEAT plant in Spain, when the Spanish economy collapsed and new car sales plummeted. Success here led to promotion as Global Head of Production for Volkswagen AG in 2009, then onto the Executive Board of Porsche AG as the member responsible for production in 2013.
Porsche Production Cost Cuts?
Wolfgang Porsche renewed Blume’s contract ahead of schedule earlier this year with a five-year extension so, as Müller was always headed for Volkswagen, no doubt this Porsche job has been on the cards for a while. As a Volkswagen man through and through and a keen production cost cutter, Blume may be just what the Supervisory Board wants in charge as global operating costs are pinned to the top of the long-term agenda.
Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: $50 billion
The automotive business unit at Duisburg-Essen University recently estimated that the dieselgate scandal could cost Volkswagen up to $50 billion, so to believe that Porsche will be ringfenced from that would be foolish. As the substantial Chinese market continues to contract, Blume will be expected to deliver increasing sales and enhanced profitability, so what marketing genius will be helping the new boss to achieve this?
New Porsche Sales and Marketing Chief
Fourteen-year Porsche veteran and current head of Sales and Marketing, Bernhard Maier, has just been shot from a cannon towards the Czech Republic to take the reins at Skoda, as the former CEO there has been put in charge of a unifed Volkswagen for Canada, North America and Mexico. This means a new Porsche sales and marketing chief, so Blume will have former Porsche Cars North America boss, Detlev von Platen, to help sell whatever he produces.
Von Platen has seven years with Porsche to his name, so the two biggest jobs on the Porsche board can barely claim double figures in time with the badge between them. Cayenne is already on its way to production in Bratislava (Slovakia) alongside Audi Q7 and VW Touareg and, if Audi A3s can be made down in Spain with minimal impact on sales, where else might Porsches be bolted together? Interesting.
I hadn’t planned on two weeks of radio silence following Porsche’s win at Le Mans, but such was the time absorbed by Le Mans and my schedule at this time of year. Having helped eldest offspring through some important exams, restarted a garage & office building project and completed a surge of Porsche insurance valuations, two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye. Suddenly it was time to go to Belgium for the legendary Ypres Rally: round two of the Delecour/Dumas rally Porsche battle.
Round one was the Monte Carlo Rally last January. There’s no love lost between these French drivers, so bundles of needle was brought to the Alps. Dumas’ advantage with the lighter, more powerful 4-litre 997 GT3 RS over Delecour’s 3.8-litre GT3 Cup was negated on the cold icy roads of the mountains around Monaco, and it almost came down to who took more risks.
At the end of three days, Delecour emerged as the winner, but not on great terms with his rivals. Despite more than five months to go round two, there was absolutely no way that things would calm down in the interim. So it was that Team Tuthill arrived in Ypres last Monday, with a dry weather forecast and an opponent keen to redress the balance.
Imagine the tension before the rally got started, and you’ll still be nowhere near how knife-edge it was over two days of racing. Delecour is mercurial: completely electric to be around. A proven rally winner, but always in the background lies that legendary temper. Dumas is also an exceptional talent: a world-class endurance racer with pitch-perfect poise in a rally car.
These guys are at the very peak of driving ability, so watching them literally go to war in two 911s across a rally stage is incredibly powerful. FIA rally radio revelled in each driver’s desperation to know the times at the end of a stage.
In qualifying, Dumas went quickest. This gave him a nice early slot in the running, out of harm’s way amongst the ERC front runners. But as the rally got started, it was clear that running up front was a double-edged sword. Dust and gravel strewn across the roads was not being cleared quickly enough for the wide 911s.
Running straight on at a junction on stage three wiped out Romain’s early advantage and handed the lead back to François. Dumas was apoplectic on radio at the end of the stage: not the sort of talk your mother wants to hear. Delecour set a quicker time on stage four, but after that it proved impossible to stay the four-litre. Delecour dropped back down to second, and Dumas claimed the overnight lead.
With four R-GT cars entered in Belgium, Ypres was the strongest round yet for the fledgling GT rally car series. Former Ypres Rally winners, Patrick Snijers and Marc Duez, had also entered R-GT Porsches. Snijers had not been able to test his car ahead of the event, so made a slow start, but his skills soon freed up more speed.
Day two was ten stages: one hundred and seventy kilometres of rallying. The pace was absolutely flat out: none could have made those cars go any faster. On the first stage, Dumas went straight on at a junction: advantage Delecour. Until the stage end, where we found out that François had done precisely the same. The stage times were identical.
Delecour then had another small off, and Dumas stretched his lead. Then disaster for Delecour: the Porsche cut out mid-stage and could not be restarted. Eight minutes passed before Delecour and co-driver Dominique Savignoni used the proper reset sequence to get the car going and finish the stage.
Delecour in Tuthill Porsche R-GT
Victory was now out of the question, but all was not lost in the championship. The FIA R-GT Cup has the same points structure as all FIA series’ including Formula 1, so there was still plenty to fight for. R-GT leader Delecour had to keep going. Francois returned with his war colours on, chasing Marc Duez for third position. Snijers was more than three minutes ahead, but Duez could be caught with some luck.
Then, as so often happens in motorsport, the wrecking ball swung away from the chaser and back to the leader. On the penultimate stage, Dumas’ Porsche overshot a junction and went head-on into a wall of hay bales, causing immediate retirement (video below). All Delecour now had to do was finish to earn fifteen points towards his championship lead. In the end, there was no stopping François, who powered past Duez to second.
“Hats off to Romain Dumas for a lion’s drive this weekend,” said Tuthill team boss, Richard Tuthill. “We would rather have won head-to-head, but survival is all part of rallying. Second place is a good result for the R-GT championship. Our cars have taken wins in both Ypres historic rallies, so we leave here satisfied.
“Now we look towards round three: WRC Rallye Deutschland. Tuthill Porsche brought the first R-GT car to this rally last year, and we’re delighted to see R-GT growing, with four cars fighting in Ypres. This series has just started and the energy this weekend has been incredible.”
While much of the Porsche glitterati rested on its laurels in Goodwood, polishing museum exhibits and reminiscing past winners, the diehards were racing. Dumas, Delecour and the Tuthill Porsche team were flat out in Belgium. Tandy, Bergmeister and co were on the US campaign trail, and the Falken Porsche RSR claimed another Porsche win in a series it departs this year.
Winterkorn’s Volkswagen may build, sell and discount all the new Porsche luxury it can produce, but the root of this Porsche cult is in competition. That will never be lost while the real racers stick with it. Ferdinand Piëch personnifies this connection, just as his uncle did, as do Delecour, Dumas, Tandy, Enzinger and so many more. Kudos to the motorsport brethren: you are the heartbeat.
Here’s some Delecour in-car video: watch the eyes.
It’s now seven hours since Wolfgang Porsche’s official statement following the shock resignation of his older cousin, Ferdinand Piëch, as chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board. This is what it said:
Stuttgart, 25 April 2015. Dr. Wolfgang Porsche, chairman of the supervisory board of Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart, comments [on] today’s developments at Volkswagen AG as follows:
“We have full confidence in the board of management of Volkswagen Group and we deeply regret the developments of the last few days. We thank Ferdinand Piëch for his decades of extraordinary and highly successful service to the Volkswagen Group. Our great loyalty to the Volkswagen Group and its 600,000 employees remains unchanged and we assume our responsibility as a principal shareholder.”
“Professor Dr. Ferdinand K. Piëch has resigned with immediate effect from his position as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and from all his mandates as a Supervisory Board member within the Volkswagen Group,” said the VW statement. “The members of the Executive Committee have unanimously determined that in view of the background of the last weeks the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation no longer exists.”
Ferdinand Piëch quits Volkswagen
The VW statement seems to suggest that a vote was taken to oust the good Doctor, and that is how most media outlets are playing it, but those in the know say that no vote was held: 78 year-old Ferdinand walked away of his own accord. Piëch’s deputy, union leader Berthold Huber, will run things while a new chairman is elected.
“Ferdinand Piëch has made an enormous contribution to Volkswagen and the entire automobile industry,” said Huber. “The developments of the last two weeks led to a loss of trust between the supervisory board chairman and the other members, which in recent days has proven to be impossible to resolve. The uncertainty had to be ended today. The committee was and is conscious of its responsibility to Volkswagen and its many thousand staff.”
Following decades controlling Audi and VW, no doubt Piëch is also highly conscious of his responsibility to Volkswagen workers and to his own major VW shareholding. His departure clears the way for a seismic shake-up at Volkswagen, which could see current CEO Winterkorn taking the chairman’s job, with Porsche boss Matthias Müller moving up to head the entire VW group. This would throw a spanner in the works at Stuttgart, which has thrived under Müller’s guidance.
Whatever happens with Volkswagen, Piëch’s move marks the end of an era for Porsche, and the end of an era for Porsche fans. While Ferdinand Piëch is certainly “one of the most important people in the history of German business”, as one supervisory board member put it, he is a pivotal figure in Porsche mythology. Porsche without independence retained some credibility with Piëch at the helm. Porsche without Piëch says something else to enthusiasts of a certain age.
Life without Piëch: The Future
Labelling this as the end of Piëch would be clearly ridiculous. The Porsche-Piëch battle goes back to the start: this is simply the latest installment. Is Ferdinand right about Volkswagen’s problems? The Porsche side of the family doesn’t think so, but then it backed Weideking against Ferdinand Piëch. We all know how that ended up: 10 billion euros of debt, criminal charges and 50 million euros to get rid of Wendelin. And Ferdinand’s Volkswagen bailing them out.
Our friend Thorsten in Germany has shared some cool throwback pics of his early 911 in driver training sessions with a previous owner and a certain Mr Bell. It’s sweet enough to find pics of your car on track in a previous life, but how much more delightful to discover Derek Reginald Bell MBE sitting behind the wheel.
One picture shows the pitlane lineup, where I spied another mate: Bata Mataja, with wife Rosa and his super-cool Porsche 356 race car, Blue Baby. Bata has shared umpteen tales from the Blue Baby archives with Ferdinand, so it was great to send him a previously unseen photo of the car.
“Running Blue Baby at Laguna would have been very early on in my racing days. I’ll have to think about what club it was with: it may have been a Porsche Club event, but not too sure. Great picture: I think I beat all these guys! 😀 ”
I am also pretty sure these are Porsche Club driving days. Asking Thorsten led to discussions on his car and where it came from – it is a very cool story.
“Well, I was fortunate to find the car I was dreaming to find at Dunkel Brothers in 2003. It looked right and felt even better. The seller was a very nice guy that knew his stuff: he had taken good care of it and it was streets ahead of the other cars I had looked at within my budget.
“A good honest car, we instantly clicked and I have loved my time with it to date. It is tied to many priceless memories: I drove it out in LA for twelve months on Mulholland, at the German Autofest, Palm Springs, getting hooked up with the RGruppe right away.
“Then it came home to Germany and has since done local rallies, trips to Gmünd, drives through France, Belgium, The Netherlands and to Classics at the Castle in England. It’s even been on the proving grounds in Weissach.”
It certainly proves itself in these pics. Thorsten thinks some of the DB shots were taken at Sears Point, but I know this DB pic was taken a few weeks ago at Collier Dade Airfield in Florida, where our Jamie recently worked with Derek again, this time on an official Bentley shoot. A well-matched pair of Porsche fans: the pic still makes me laugh. Perfect!
One of the Porsche F1 driver rumours previously reported on Ferdinand was confirmed this morning, when Porsche announced that Nico Hülkenberg would drive for its LMP1 squad at Le Mans 2015. While there is no further news on Jenson Button, it proves that the third LMP1 car is not set aside for works GT drivers.
“The Hulk” currently drives for Force India on Formula 1 (based just down the road from us in Silverstone) and enjoyed a solid start to the 2014 F1 season. Recently confirmed with Force India for 2015, the Porsche drive will give him something else to do next summer.
“Porsche and Le Mans: this combination probably attracts every race driver,” said Nico. “I’ve been a Porsche fan for a long time and have been watching their return to the LMP1 class closely. The desire grew to drive that car at Le Mans. I am very pleased the 2015 Formula One calendar allows for it and I’m grateful for Sahara Force India’s generosity in letting me go for it. Now it’s up to me to work hard to satisfy both commitments.”
Nico Hülkenberg Porsche Drive Le Mans 2015
When Nico takes the start of the 2015 Le Mans on June 13, he will be the first active F1 driver to race at Le Mans since 2009. While The Hulk is no stranger to Porsche (he previously tested the 997 Hybrid at the Nürburgring), Porsche is bedding him into racing the 919 at the 6 Hours of Spa on May 2.
Quotes from the Porsche race personnel read like every other press release – “this proves our 919 Hybrid is a worthy race seat etc” – but there is no doubt that Porsche has pulled in another exceptionally quick race driver who has dominated most of the championships he has raced in. After some really impressive F1 race drives in less than stellar machinery, Hülkenberg missed out on a works Ferrari seat by the barest of margins and has always qualified well: his pace should put down a challenging benchmark.
Also important is Hülkenberg’s long-term Dekra sponsorship and experience with F1’s new drivetrain technology. Very few people have raced the latest generation of F1 cars and ,while there is little outward similarity between the two series, driving quickly with hybrid power demands a specific approach. Nico’s intelligence and understanding of high-level hybrid racing could give his car a distinct advantage: who knows until we go racing.
While this deal is just for a driver, it may also be that Porsche could somehow explore connections to Force India’s technical know-how and commercial activities. Vijay Mallya knows how to make a buck or two and India has a proper F1 circuit doing nothing. Perhaps there’s an opportunity to bring WEC to that part of the world. I’m just throwing it out there.
“It’s not a revolutionary idea; taking an old car and adding some new stuff polishing it up a bit and… ‘tah-dah’. It’s not revolutionary: lots of people have done it, especially in this country with Mustangs and ‘resto mods’ as they’re called over here. I don’t think any company has been crazy enough to do what we’ve attempted to do in such a cross-the-board, spectacularly over-the-top way.”
Whatever about polishing Porsche parts, the likeable Rob Dickinson has certainly polished the rhetoric regarding his Singer 911s since our first meeting, when Jamie Lipman and I were the first guys Rob invited to see his creation, and shoot Singer number 1 on the road in California. Back then, the Singer idea was still forming: what base car, what market, what price?
Rob Dickinson Singer Porsche
Unveiled in 2003, Rob’s Bahama Yellow RGruppe ’69 E hot rod was an inspiration for me, and for many others who followed their hearts to the air-cooled 911. This latest video on Singer eschews the same old Singer shots and lets the organ grinder talk on how his dream has developed. In fairness, the approach could have led to Rob digging a rather large hole for himself, but I think he makes heartfelt sense of his concept and product. Kudos, mon ami.
“Freeman Thomas started this club (RGruppe, with co-founder Cris Huergas) for hot rodded sports purpose early 911s in 2001, so I immediately joined the club when I built my car in 2003, and my car became quite well known in the RGruppe. As I enjoyed being part of this ‘clique’ if you like – this team of guys who had similar tastes – I started to see these expensively executed hot rods.
“My little car was done on the cheap, but a lot of people started to show up to the yearly meetings of the RGruppe in very expensively restored early 911s which had big engines shoehorned into them, and spectacular brakes, and some of these cars were better than others. I happened to drive a particularly well executed version of this car, and was just blown away at how refined and sophisticated an early 911 could actually be.
Steve McQueen references are so important
“That was part of the germination of this idea that these cars don’t have to be rough-and-ready hot rods with limited appeal. The 911 is so evocative – Steve McQueen references are so important for the vibe of this car (and everything that surrounds this car is important) – if someone was to restore a 911 so that it had a wider attractiveness for a wider audience, you could probably appeal to that audience and make a business out of it.
“I started to see that, and the combination of how my car was reacted to in the taste-making world of Los Angeles with the aesthetics, and then I’d got in this car where the engineering had been well sweated, and I thought: put these two together and there’s some fun to be had and maybe some business to be done.
“We generally try and improve every aspect of the car, while honouring everything that is Porsche. We hate custom cars here at this shop. Maybe ‘hate’ is a strong word, but the idea that our car might be seen as a custom car makes me feel nauseous. Our car needs to be seen as a Porsche through and through. We only put Singer badges on our car for the sake of clarity: this is a Porsche 911 that’s been touched by us.
“Hopefully, it’s a line in the sand as to how good an air-cooled 911 can be that isn’t a race car. It’s very easy to build a thinly-disguised race car for the road, but that’s not something we’re too interested in doing. We want to do a properly rounded car which is properly usable, that can be driven to the office on a Monday and driven to the track at the weekend: it has that wonderful duality but just fine-tunes the focus a little bit.”
I have a feeling that the high-end hot rod Rob tips as inspiration is SHTang: the 3.6-litre early 911 built by WEVO for Steven Harris, but I might be wrong. I’ve done many miles in SHTang, but not driven a Singer yet, so can’t tell you how the two compare. That is the obvious next step.
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