Seduced by another........not

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

Because the 964/968/993 almost ran the company into the ground, financially.

That's not exclusive to Porsche.

Porsche, Lotus, Alfa, Aston, Maseratti all spent most of their existance hanging just over the abyss.

Collectively, they pulled all sort of pranks to stay alive. Porsche used to swap VIN plates for higher serial #s when the Bankers came to indicate they were producing/selling more units than they actually were. Lotus used to park cars in an adjacent field under tarps telling shareholders and bankers that they had been ordered and already shipped.

But, they concentrated on making the best cars, not on keeping the company alive, they were lean and mean, not fat and bloated.

Putting priorities first is a large part of why they survived 6 decades perilously close to the edge.

Perhaps, staying just a little hungry is a key ingredient not only to making great cars, but also surviving.

Cheers!

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Lil bastard

That's not exclusive to Porsche.

Porsche, Lotus, Alfa, Aston, Maseratti all spent most of their existance hanging just over the abyss.

Collectively, they pulled all sort of pranks to stay alive. Porsche used to swap VIN plates for higher serial #s when the Bankers came to indicate they were producing/selling more units than they actually were. Lotus used to park cars in an adjacent field under tarps telling shareholders and bankers that they had been ordered and already shipped.

But, they concentrated on making the best cars, not on keeping the company alive, they were lean and mean, not fat and bloated.

Putting priorities first is a large part of why they survived 6 decades perilously close to the edge.

Perhaps, staying just a little hungry is a key ingredient not only to making great cars, but also surviving.

Cheers!

And it turns out it was just delaying the inevitable for them all.

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

And it turns out it was just delaying the inevitable for them all.

Well, certainly that's one point of view.

Sorry to hj the thread, but each of these companies survived better than half of the automobile's total existance, not too bad. And, surviving is surviving.

But remember, in Porsche's case, it wasn't a sports car which pulled them back from the edge. It was currency manipulation in the mid-90's through '03 and an SUV with a Stuttgart shield on it, not the 986/996, 987/997 or the Cayman.

The vision was lost, for many of the reasons I've stated, but also through the generations' family in-fighting that shifted the goal from making the best performance cars to making the most money. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does mean that the focus shifted, and this is perhaps most visible when compared to past products.

I mean just imagine deliberately sabotaging the best platform in the company (986) in order to prop up and prevent overtaking an existing design (911).

Guessing 'ol Ferdinand's corpse was bouncing off the proverbial rev limiter on this one.

I'm truly not trying to be controversial here, but I guess I view these cos., in their time, as building and defending their reputations, not relying on them as is now often the case.

Porsche certainly isn't alone here, but Porsche is the subject at hand.

Cheers!