Publications
Partners
THE WEISSACH WAY: This is where your next R8 and Lambo will probably be conceived.
When Porsche lost its independence and was absorbed into the VW Group a year ago fans of Stuttgart's Prancing Horse badge feared the company’s legendary performance-car heritage would be diluted.
Porsche though, has now pulled off a major coup by beating brand sibling Audi to secure development rights for the VW conglomerate’s future performance cars, thereby safeguarding its engineering integrity.
VW’s current CEO Martin Winterkorn has awarded Porsche, instead of in-house bidding rival Audi, the contract to develop new front-mid and rear-mid-mounted drivetrain platforms for the group’s performance cars.
'MODULAR PLATFORM'
This means all future Audi R8 and all Lamborghini products will cue their design structure from Zuffenhausen’s engineering measurements.
Porsche will also develop the group’s new "modular standard matrix platform", which should debut in the second-generation Panamera and be shared with Bentley.
Audi’s contribution to Winterkorn’s goal of reducing the VW group’s procurement costs by 30% will be very much a junior engineering project, with Ingolstadt’s technical department working on new "modular longitudinal matrix" platforms pertaining to vehicles such as the A4, A5, Q5 and Porsche Cajun.
The chief architect of VW's Porsche takeover, former Audi boss Ferdinand Piëch, must surely be a trifle upset by this new engineering hierarchy within the matrix of brands he has always thought to be so tightly in control of as chairman of VW's supervisory board.
Porsche though, has now pulled off a major coup by beating brand sibling Audi to secure development rights for the VW conglomerate’s future performance cars, thereby safeguarding its engineering integrity.
VW’s current CEO Martin Winterkorn has awarded Porsche, instead of in-house bidding rival Audi, the contract to develop new front-mid and rear-mid-mounted drivetrain platforms for the group’s performance cars.
'MODULAR PLATFORM'
This means all future Audi R8 and all Lamborghini products will cue their design structure from Zuffenhausen’s engineering measurements.
Porsche will also develop the group’s new "modular standard matrix platform", which should debut in the second-generation Panamera and be shared with Bentley.
Audi’s contribution to Winterkorn’s goal of reducing the VW group’s procurement costs by 30% will be very much a junior engineering project, with Ingolstadt’s technical department working on new "modular longitudinal matrix" platforms pertaining to vehicles such as the A4, A5, Q5 and Porsche Cajun.
The chief architect of VW's Porsche takeover, former Audi boss Ferdinand Piëch, must surely be a trifle upset by this new engineering hierarchy within the matrix of brands he has always thought to be so tightly in control of as chairman of VW's supervisory board.
