DMY 2.7T

I owned an Audi back in college ('80 5000) and the parts were stamped, "Porsche/Audi".

I understand that the current CEO of Audi is someone from the family of original pioneers of the Porsche, i.e Dr. ______ Porsche...

What's the scoop anyway? People keep asking me, and I'm not up on my trivia...

TheBrit

As are Skoda and many others...

timcar

Herr Dr. Piech (SP?) is the grandson of Dr. F. Porsche designer of the original Volkswagen, which was the beetle. It was first designed in the late 30's but not produced until after WWII. F. Porsche, or his son, left VW and went on to found Porsche. I believe there is still some Porsche family ownership in Porsche and that they perhaps also control some VW shares.

Prior to be being VW CEO, Dr. Piech was head of Audi. The beautiful cars we see today are arguably the result of his enforcing his vision on Audi AG. The man seems to have an abundance of daring, will and ego. My sense is that with his assumption of power at VW, he has lost interest in Audi. It's almost as if he wants to diminish the importance of Audi to enhance to importance of VW.

TheBrit

Hmmm, perhaps so. You have to remember that (in Europe at least, not sure in the rest of the world) VW is the bigger selling brand because the price / features balance is much nearer the average car buyer's target. Skoda still has a long way to go in terms of image to gain mass acceptance, and Audi is the premium brand attracting premium prices and therefore lower market share.

What VW seem to be doing is taking Audi technology and applying it to the VW range at a lower price than Audi do. A Golf V6 4Motion goes like a rocket and is cheaper than an 1.8T, but that's not why you buy the Audi is it? You buy an Audi to have an Audi. Therefore, an "Audi buyer" will probably buy an Audi A4 for lots of money, while somebody with less brand-concern buys a Passat for less.

Yep, every new Audi you buy helps fund the development of new features to benefit VW and Skoda buyers. Kind-hearted and generous to pay for other people to driver nicer, safer and smarter cars aren't we? ;-)

phred

They fought so hard to bring Audi back from the brink and now they want to give all those props to VW buyers. One hand giveth, one hand taketh away.

Griff

Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was an innovative engineer that gained acclaim during the turn of the century with electric cars(!). He was technical director and a board member at Daimler during the development of the famous Mercedes SS & SSK models then started his own design firm in 1931. He designed the model that eventually became the Beetle as a commission from a car company called NSU and developed the "people's car" in the 1930's for Volkswagen.

Also during the 1930's Dr. Porsche was the lead designer of the famous rear-engined Auto Union Grand Prix & hill-climb cars. [Note that Auto Union was the result of the merger of the original Audi, DKW, Horch, & Wanderer - Hence the four rings!] So Porsche designed Audi's first. [BTW, NSU later merged with AutoUnion to form Audi GmbH. Confused yet? ;^)]

He didn't build his own cars (Model 356!) until after the war - in Gmund, Austria.

Now, Dr. Porsche had a son Ferry (who went on to run the company with his name on the door) and a daughter - who married into the Piech family. They had a son named after his grandfather: Ferdinand Piech. His family has stakes in both Porsche and the VW Group holdings. He is a former head of the Audi division and current chairman of the VW Group which controls the following brands:

Audi
Bentley
Lamborghini
Rolls Royce (until BMW takes over in 2002/3?)
Seat
Skoda
Volkswagen

PS- Damn, I knew my history degree would come in handy some day...

TheBrit

... you just remembered all the stuff that my addled brain (too much time in front of PC methinks) could not recall, and then threw a whole load more on top for good measure.

So VW, Audi and Mercedes share a common history to a certain extent, just leaving BMW out in the cold of the German Auto Manufacturers Club front porch? Do you think that's where the BMW / all other German cars animosity comes from? I don't often hear Audi and Merc drivers calling each other ('cept for my dad, who drives a Merc - I call him to high heaven just for the fun, and he calls me back) or Audi and Porche drivers for that matter.

BTW, in case anyone starts getting on their high horse and ranting about BMW animosity one way or another, I'm saying this "tongue in cheek". But you know what I mean about BMW drivers though...

;-P

mjt

The eldest Ferdinand Porsche was an engineer for many companies, including Mercedes. He left and formed his own engineering company in the 20s/30s which was responsible for the Auto Union GP car, among other things. Porsche's engineering company (now also including his son Ferdinand, aka "Ferry") was one of several that designed a car for a German government contract. Of course, it was Porsche's design which won the contract and became the VW Beetle. Before and during the war, VW was a government-owned entity, post-war it became an independent, publicly-traded company.

After the war, Ferry Porsche and his sister Louise Piech, formed a company to build cars under the Porsche name. Thus, Porsche and the 356 were born. By the 1960s, the third generation of Porsche family members had joined the company, including Ferry's eldest son (F.A. Porsche - designer/stylist for the 911) and Louise Piech's eldest son (Ferdinand Piech - more-or-less head of the racing department). There was much infighting
between the cousins and many talented non-family employees were being held back, so in the early 1970s Ferry Porsche removed *all* family members from Porsche (including himself).

F. Piech went to VW and F.A. Porsche started his own company (Porsche Design - who've styled everything from toasters and sunglasses to bicycles and boats). Porsche became a private
stock company (Porsche K.G.), where the ten family members (Ferry Porsche and his 4 children and Louise Piech and her 4 children) split the stock equally. In the early 1980s, Porsche became a public stock company (Porsche A.G.). The 10 family members retained ownership of the voting stock, but non-voting stock was made available to the public. The family still controls all the voting stock and 1/3 of the non-voting stock.

AUOOOO

a short time in the '60s. They bought DKW which had just launched the "F102", and turned it into the early AUDI 60/80/90 by adding a small 4 cyl 4 stroke engine, (in lieu of using DKWs fantastic experimental V6 2 stroke.)
I forgot when they sold off to VW.

Griff

It's good to see another historian in the crowd! Well written <b>mjt</b>