Jalopnik: Ferdinand Piech

O Canada! Snappy Dispatch On VW-Porsche Marriage From Our Neighbor To The North

Matthew DeBord — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EDT

Here's nice piece of car-business analysis, from north of the border. Volkswagen wants to take another crack at the North American market, and according to biz writer Eric Reguly of The Globe and Mail, VW might be able to pull it off, despite some major hurdles. However, when it comes to the larger goal of knocking Toyota off its perch...well, there are some problems.

First and foremost, VW needs to take on North America and the Toyota hegemony in partnership with Porsche. And, according to Reguly, who cites German press reports, Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and VW chief Ferdinand Piech don't get along to well. As far as we can tell, Wiedeking is ticked off because VW has a deal that prevents the sort of cost-cutting measures that Porsche wants to implement at VW, as Porsche moves toward owning most of VW. Sounds like a potentially juicy automotive soap opera to us.

And props to Reguly for laying it all out so cleanly, with just a tantalizing hint of speculation. We're keepin' an eye on that guy.

Porsche 917

Jonny Lieberman — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Photo: Lothar Spurzem.

It goes perhaps without saying that our favorite racing series of all time is Group B. And why not? Family hatchbacks tuned to within an inch of their steroidal jackrabbit lives was and will always be good, dirty fun. Relatively lax rules meant manufacturers were free to employ A-league trickery to make their cars faster (both turbo and supercharging with unlimited boost), lighter (exotic materials) and nimbler (AWD, baby) than the competition. And we're not the only ones with B-lust. When put to a vote this past June, you crowned the Audi quattro S1 the King of the "Killer Bees." Interestingly, the man behind that machine is the same man behind today's Fantasy Garage nominee: Dr. Ferdinand Piëch (for those keeping score, the good doctor is also responsible for the VW Phaeton and Bugatti Veyron). No surprise then that Piëch's single-mindedness turned the nearly stillborn 917 into perhaps the greatest racing car of all time. And without question the most powerful.

Piëch's Porsche 917 came to life only because the FIA changed the rules to prevent cars like it from existing. Ford's GT40 (and the Lola T70) proved to be so totally dominant at events like Le Mans that in 1968 the homologation numbers for Group 4 (5.0-liter sports car class) were lowered from 50 to 25, opening the door to other manufacturers. Porsche's racing arm had already been building close to 25 prototype cars a year under Piëch's stewardship, dating back to 1965. This seemed like a no brainer. Furthermore, they could sell the surplus cars to privateers, recouping some of the development costs. With only 10 months to go before the start of the season, Piëch set out to develop a car that could take on and defeat the world's best. Hey, why not?

Piëch and company started with the already worthy Porsche 908 racer. The tubular steel frame was scrapped in favor of a slightly weaker but much lighter aluminum job that weighed only 101 pounds. Like the 908, four independent wishbones suspended the 917, only the coils were honed from titanium. Low weight was the top priority — the shift knob was made from balsa wood. The still air-cooled engine (rumor has it that VW put up two-thirds of the development cash simply to promote air-cooling) was essentially the 908's straight-eight with four more cylinders slapped on, creating a very slick 4.5-liter flat-12 that was good for 580 horsepower. Unlike the 908's boxer crankshaft, the 917's engine used a shorter crank similar to those used in "V" engines in order to reduce the motor's footprint. The 917's were finished with a detachable tail, allowing teams to choose between high downforce or low drag.

Things got off to a rocky start when the FIA visited the Porsche factory to find only three completed 917s, 18 assembled, and seven literally in pieces. No chance, said the inspectors; the rules mandated 25 completed cars. Three weeks later, in a feat of automotive heroism that should make your spine tingle, Piëch presented the inspectors with 25 working 917s all parked in a row in front of the Porsche factory. He even offered them a test drive, which was politely (and wisely) turned down. Regardless, these new über Porches would be allowed to compete. Funny side note: Ferrari was able to bring its 512 to the races a year later with only 17 cars built. C'est la Enzo.

Much rockier however, was the car itself. It's a running joke among car cognoscenti to refer to the 996 GT2 as the widowmaker. Oops, wrong Porsche. In the 917, wheel spin at over 200 mph was commonplace. Drivers would not only pray for their cars to break down, but openly celebrate when one did. So bad was the 917's handling that several top pros simply refused to climb inside. Porsche asked BMW to supply two drivers for the 1969 1000 km Nürburgring. The drivers found the Porsches to be both insanely fast and dangerous, and BMW ultimately refused to take the risk. The Bavarians were sadly proved right a few weeks later when driver John Woolfe was killed in a 917 during the first lap of Le Mans. Two 917s did lead the pack for a while, but much to the delight of their drivers, broke down during the night, allowing Jacky Ickx to win the big race in a GT40, beating a Porsche 908 by a football field.

The 917/20 "Pink Pig" aka "The Truffelhunter of Zuffenhausen"

Something had to be done; the most powerful Porsche racecar ever built succeeded in winning just a single race (Zeltweg) in its first season. Partnering with John Wyer and the Gulf team, Porsche's engineers were free to concentrate on refining the 917 while others had the chore of actually racing it. A breakthrough came when a Wyer engineer named John Horsmann decided downforce was more important than low drag. Taping aluminum sheets together to form a short dual set of tails, the 917 almost instantly went from being an undrivable monster to a fairly well sorted racer. Later that year a 917K (the short-tailed 917s were referred to as "Kurzheck") won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as Daytona, Brands Hatch, Spa, Monza, Watkins Glenn, and the Austria Ring — bringing home the much coveted "World Championship for Makes" title. A 917K with a bigger 4.9-liter mill and a highly flammable magnesium frame would win Le Mans again in 1971. Not bad for a car once feared and loathed by its drivers.

Then the FIA banned it. Normally the story would stop here. Porsche built a can of whoop ass on wheels, won some races and then their class got canned. Happens every year, and we can't just keep filling the Fantasy Garage with Le Mans winners now can we? (Wait, can we?) Lucky for those of us for the whom the appellation "hoon" might be apropos, somebody hipped Porsche to the Can-Am series taking place in North America. Specifically, Group 7. Why Group 7? Because it didn't have any fricking rules, that's why! Seriously, there were no restrictions on engine size, induction or power. There was no minimum or maximum vehicle weight. You could do whatever you wanted in terms of aerodynamics. Cars had only to have two seats, enclosed wheels and meet 1972 safety requirements. Group 7 was essentially Smokey Yunick turned loose in Australia, metaphorically speaking of course. When you dangle meat like that in front of a man like Piëch, the results are usually both predictable and astonishing.

1500 HP Porsche 917/30, The Most Powerful Racecar Ever

Porsche's first inclination was to develop a 750 hp straight-16. However, they decided to go with a bored out 5.4-liter twin-turbo 12-cylinder that was good for 1,100 horsepower — in engine-saving racing trim. For the qualifiers, boost was cranked up to 39 psi and the 917/30s were developing 1500 horses, making them the most powerful racecars ever. Performance was double stupid, with 0-60 happening in 1.9 seconds, 0-200 in 10.9 seconds and top speeds in the 250 mph neighborhood. In 1973, with Mark Donahue behind the wheel, the 917/30 lost exactly one race. It won all the rest. Forced to act, Can-Am implemented the only rule it could to slow down the ultimate 917: for 1974 Group 7 cars had to achieve better than three miles per gallon, which effectively killed both the 917 and Cam-Am. Also, didn't Steve McQueen make a movie about the 917? Happy voting.

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Though, because of Monday Night Football, this will be switching shortly to every Wednesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our Fantasy Garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. Would you like to nominate a car for the Fantasy Garage? Write tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "Fantasy."]

Bugatti Veyron 16.4

Jonny Lieberman — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:30:00 EDT

"The most pointless exercise on the planet has got to be this four-wheel-drive 1000 horsepower Bugatti. I think it's incredibly childish this thing people have about just one element—top speed or standing kilometre or 0-60. It's about as narrow minded as you can get as a car designer to pick on one element. It's like saying we're going to beat the original Mini because we're going to make a car 10 mph faster on its top speed—but it's two foot longer and 200 kilos heavier. That's not car designing—that just reeks of a company who are paranoid."

That's McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray talking about this week's Fantasy Garage candidate during it's incubation period. And I told you, this time it would be another Volkswagen. A Bug, even. Hatched almost entirely from the mind of the same madman who brought us last week's disgraced Phaeton W12, the Bugati Veyron is without question a high-water mark of automotive engineering. Can I rephrase that? The 16.4 is the high-water mark. And no matter what any of you say, this one's going into the Garage.

There's an old joke. One guy asks his friend, "Do you know the difference between an elephant and an apricot?" His friend answers, "No, what's the difference?" And that is exactly what we are dealing with here. For more than a century, makes have been chasing automotive platitudes. You could sell a car simply because it was the most expensive, most powerful or had the highest top speed. The Veyron manages to do all three. It also more than likely has the best brakes ever fitted to a production car, and can go left/right rather well, thank you. In fact, Gordon Murray had this to say after he actually drove the car;

"One really good thing, and I simply never expected this, is that it does change direction. It hardly feels its weight. Driving it on a circuit I expected a sack of cement, but you can really throw it at tight chicanes."

Sure, there will be some who say that the half as heavy (and half as powerful) Ferrari F40 feels better through the twists than the Veyron. But of course, a decent Se7en makes the F40 feel like a potted plant. And that's the thing with the Veyron – what the hell do you compare it to? Any other car is, well, an apricot.

Through our eyes, it is easy to see why Piech dreamed up such a superlative car. Look, we aspire to one day, maybe, somehow, imaginary sky-god willing, own a Lamborghini. Piech owned Lamborghini. And Bentley, Audi, VW, Skoda, Seat and Bugatti. What's a guy to do? Sit back and build yellower Murcielagos? No way. Remember who Ferdi's grandpappy was (Dr. Porsche). No, he needed to not just push the performance envelope, but smack it. With an A-bomb. A curious side-note, Piech has thirteen-children through four different women. Or maybe that's not a side-note at all?

While Piech may have announced the Veyron "officially" in Switzerland, Volkswagen had been hard at work on the car for over two-years. Remember the butch but ultimately ungainly Hunaudieres concept from Bentley? Not only was it similar in appearance and structure to the Veyron, but it ran the world's first W16 engine. 1999 also saw the EB 18/4 Veyron concept unveiled in Tokyo. Very little changed externally between that concept and the final Veyron, though, obviously, the massive 18-cylinder true-W mill was dropped in favor of the more ~~Bruce~~ compact, faux-W, 16-cylinder VR engine.

That was hardly the half of it. It is one thing to travel at 250+ mph. it is another entirely to do so safely. As evidenced by the two Veyron prototypes that crashed during development. Piech retired in 2002 and the wishful 2003 launch date was pushed back to 2005. New VAG-kingpin Bernd Pischetsrieder replaced Hartmut Warkuss, the Veyrons' original daddy, with Dr. Thomas Bscher. It was Bscher who finally delivered the goods. And what great, heaping, mental-patient strength goods they were. See, the Veyron may sell for a cool 1 million euros (about $1.35 million), but each car costs Bugatti close to $10 million to make. Which, from a certain perspective, is a hell of a deal.

Do we even need to get into the technical stuff? Really? Can't I just play you that James May video or something? No? OK, the Veyron has an 8-liter W16 that features four air-to-liquid cooled turbochargers. Production engines are exceeding Piech's initial claim of 1,001 hp to the tune of 1,040 hp. Torque is I-hate-stumps-stupid; 923 lb-ft to be exact. You'll also get a seven-speed DSG, Haldex AWD and 8-piston, 15.7" carbon-ceramic, turbine-vented brakes. Oh, and the moveable wing creates 0.5 Gs of stopping power. Hell, in case the regular brakes fail, even the handbrake has ABS. Every body panel but the doors are made of carbon fiber (the doors are aluminum). The central tub is carbon fiber, while the front cradle is aluminum space frame and the rear chassis is heat-resistant tubular stainless steel.

You really want more? Yeesh. Well, the Veyron has ten radiators (three for cooling the engine, one heat exchanger for the air to liquid intercoolers, two for the air conditioning system, one for transmission oil, one for differential oil, one for engine oil, and most amazing/decadent of all, one radiator that does nothing but cool the hydraulic oil used by the spoiler. ('Cause you just gotta have that. ) The Veyron also has modes. And not simply "comfort" and "sport." No, the ultimate road car actually changes shape. Trips to 7-11 are handled relatively conventionally in "normal" mode. The wing is tucked neatly into the car's rump and ride height is about five inches off the gravel. Pretty cushy, especially as you will be nearly swaddled in leather as you munch down on your 1/4 Pound Big Bite.

Should you hit more than 130 mph between stop signs – which is dumb-easy to do – the car transforms into "handling" mode. Configured like this, the suspension drops the car down by nearly two inches and the wing extends, revealing a separate spoiler. Even more shape-shifting takes place out of sight. Two flaps, under the car and ahead of the wheels, open up. Working together, handling mode creates nearly 800 pounds of downforce, sticking the Veyron to ground like chewed gum all the way up to 230 mph. Obviously, that's just not fast enough!

Enter "top-speed" mode, which is akin to KITT's Super-Pursuit Mode. Only, you know, real. While the Veyron is idling, the driver inserts a second key into the floor, alerting the car it is nearly time to go batshit. In this guise, the Veyron's knuckles drag even closer to the ground (about 2.5 inches). The wing is almost fully retracted – it pokes up at a totally precise 2 degrees. The hidden flaps are closed. All this tom-foolery reduces the drag coefficient from a brick-like 0.41 to a slicker 0.36. Downforce plunges to just 120 lbs. And yes, for 12 minutes, you can blast across the planet at an electronically limited 253 mph. And then the Bugatti is out of gas. Though, should you so much as tap the brakes or turn the wheel in top-speed mode, the Veyron reverts to handling mode.

And now the numbers. Let's start with braking, as the Veyron's stopping power is lunatic-level bonkers and on par with its acceleration. Simply lifting your foot off the gas at top-speed produces 0.3 Gs of stopping force. Standing on the pedal will produce over two earths' gravities worth of stop. Bugatti claims the Veyron will come to a standstill from 253 mph in less than 10 seconds. Think about that for a moment. If a world-class sprinter were to begin the 100-meter dash at exactly the moment a balls-out Veyron began braking, he would reach the finish line at the same time the Bugatti ceased moving. Though the Veyron would be seven or so football fields further down the road. We're not sure what this means, either. Except that cars like this demand analogies that defy sense.

Aside from being the fastest production car the world has ever seen (what's up, Ultimate Aero TT?), the 16.4 is also the quickest. 60 mph is dispatched with in 2.64 seconds. And remember, this is an AWD car that weighs 4,300 lbs. Zero to 100 mph? Six seconds flat. 0-150 mph? Eleven seconds flat. 0-200 mph? 22 seconds flat. Just to give you some perspective, a McLaren F1 needs 28 seconds to hit the double-ton. Amazingly, only 55 seconds are needed to hit 253 mph. At which point you are eating two gallons of gas per minute. Which is simply fantastic.

In fact, with the exception of being really ugly, I can't think of single reason not to induct the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 into our Fantasy Garage. Remember that price is not a barrier to entrance and we have the world's slickest team of mechanics. Though, if you were to actually purchase a Veyron for yourself, Bugatti keeps a mechanic on call 24-hours a day, ready to jet anywhere in the world. Serious like, this car rules. Special super-nerd, giant-geek extra pistonhead-points for anyone who can accurately explain why the car in the top picture is not a production Veyron. Now, vote! – Jonny Lieberman

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our fantasy garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. And after the Phaeton disaster, we're not really interested in what you think.]

Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, So Far:
· RUF RT12
· Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT
· 1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage
· Honda 1300 Coupe 9
· 1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe
· Ferrari 288 GTO
· Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
· 1970 Buick GSX 455
· First Generation BMW M Coupe

The Votes Are In: Phaeton, Out!

Jonny Lieberman — Mon, 14 May 2007 12:00:00 EDT

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." – John Adams

The people have spoken. And the people are wrong, fantastically wrong. I'm not shocked that the greatest-ever Volkswagen was given the boot from our make believe petroleum paradise, but I am deeply disappointed. I remember when I first discussed nominating the Phaeton with various members of the Jalopnik brain trust. We were convinced that it would never get in. Much to our surprise and quite honestly, delight, "Piech's Folly" made cut the mustard. But then, despite my passionate plea, despite comment after comment explaining just why in fact the Phaeton W12 is so very special, at the first opportunity some of you did the obvious thing – the big VeeDub was sacked (I say "some" because while 414 folks voted the Phaeton out, 801 voted to expel other and sadly lesser cars). No matter, though. We exist in the form of a blog and therefor we lick our wounds and move on. 'Tis the nature of the beast. But I'm getting a Volkswagen in the Fantasy Garage. And it sure as hell ain't going to be a first generation GTI. Perhaps the Touareg? Because I'm mean. – Jonny Lieberman

The Back of Beyond: Volkswagen's New Rear-Engined Ride

Jonny Lieberman — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:00:00 EDT

Seeing as how the ultralux Phaeton didn't work out so hot, the People's Car Company is going to release a new car for – get this – the people. And this new car will have its motivator right where Dr. Porsche intended — in the bum. The versatile wordsmiths at Automobile are claiming a mole buried "deep inside" VeeDub HQ has confirmed that a new ass-engined little car is imminent. For those of us that live in America and other first world countries, two body styles will be offered. One will ape the Beetle (why not?) and the other will look like a puny Jetta. Our cars will also come with a direct-injected turbo 3-banger.

If you live on the wrong side of the tracks you'll get a two-cylinder dealio and the same two body styles, but more choice when it comes to wheelbase. And if you live in a really bad neighborhood (developing third-world), the engineers that build a quad-turbo W16 will sell you a 1-cylinder neo-Bug. To keep the price low (an estimated $10,000 to $14,000) no power-steering will be offered. Should you need ABS or a moon roof, those are available extras. And to keep the new hiney-heavy little guy on the road, VW will make stability control standard.

Also of note is that apparently this car hails from the mind of none other than the archduke himself, Dr. Ferdinand Piech. We would just like to point out to the good doctor that VAG is totally missing a 7, a 9, an 11 and the all important 13 through 15-cylinder engines. For shame. Oh, and a modern rear-engined microcar? We can't hardly wait. And you just know an entire regiment of hoons is already out there, licking their chops in anticipation of racing the dang things. – Jonny Lieberman

Return of the Rear-engine Volkswagen [automobilemag.com]

Jalopnik Fantasy Garage: Volkswagen Phaeton W12

Jonny Lieberman — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:00:00 EDT

Yes, the Phaeton. Like everyone else, when I first heard Volkswagen would be producing a $100,000 car, I was aghast. Was this the same Volkswagen that built my friend Tristy's Scirocco? Aside from constantly belching black smoke, that car's passenger seat would snap off its runners on every left turn. Six figures for a fat Passat? I'll pass, thanks. But then, details started trickling in. The Phaeton would share an all-wheel-drive, air-suspended platform with both the Bentley Continental GT and the Audi A8L, including the mega-compact 6.0-liter W12. That's some Brucetastic DNA. Snob-wise, the Phaeton would be at the correct end of a one-way street. While some jokers might climb into a Bentley and cringe at the Volkswagen-sourced gear selector, ain't nobody's getting into a Phaeton and bemoaning, "Hey, that's the knob-a-roo from the Continental GT – gross!" Sure, the biggest-ever VW would come from a fine family. But then again, so do the Hilton sisters.

Think of these three VeeDubs as the Brothers Karamazov. The Bentley is Dimitri, physically mighty, a bit debased but most of all a sensualist. Champagne? Women? Bring it on. The A8L is Ivan, a strict rationalist and logical to a fault. The Phaeton is Alexei, Dostoevsky's hero and spiritual center. Like in the novel, the Bentley and the Audi are both trying to kill their father. They both love his (R&D) money but find the old man a bit of an embarrassment. But the Phaeton, like Alexei, is out to redeem the patriarch. And if you recall Volkswagen's father (let's say the Bug, not Hitler), this is quite a tall order. Like the murder trial that unfolds, it's not the result in question, but the intent. Five years ago, VW's archduke Ferdinand Pi ch was in sole possession of the cash, boffins and cojones to attempt not only yanking Volkswagen up by its own lederhosen, but building the very best car in the world. He succeeded by half.

There are those who call the Phaeton a mistake. Some refer to it as "Pi ch's Folly." Worse, there are those who say Volkswagen had no business building a car that competes with the likes of BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz. This type of "know your place" thinking is reactionary, wrongheaded conservatism at its worst. What if Chevrolet had never bothered with the Corvette? What if Ford never greenlit the Mustang? What if Carroll Shelby had kept on farming chickens and not taken on Enzo Ferrari? Naysayers are always quick to chastise a carmaker for overstepping their brand, to which I answer, "Buick GNX." Even Farago, who's issued such pronouncements as, "Volvo should only make safe cars," was so impressed by the Phaeton that he defied his own mantra and declared it a hit. To reiterate, that type of can't-do thinking would have BMW still popping out inexpensive bubble cars while poor Volkswagen lumbered along with nothing but the Beetle.

The Phaeton W12's stats are humbling: 444 horsepower squeezed from one of the world's oddest and most complex engines. (All pistonheads would be well served by reading the technical mumbo jumbo behind the VR6 and W engines.) For comparison's sake, the Rolls Royce Phantom produces just nine more horsepower from a larger 12-cylinder. Inverse to last week's Corvette ZR-1, the Phaeton's engine is the least interesting thing about the car. According to a tall, blustery Brit named Jeremy, if one were to remove the Germanic 155 mph limiter, the Phaeton will top out at 201 mph, which would be faster than a contemporary Z06. Is this totally true, or more fibbing from Clarkson? Who knows. Still, have a look at these German hoons doing 174 mph without a speck of trouble. That's remarkable for any 5,100-pound car, let alone a VW. But an engine is just an engine.

What makes the Phaeton so well suited to the JFG is everything else. As Jezzo said, "the attention to detail is staggering." Name something the Phaeton does better than your car. You have comfy seats? No, really, according to the Phaeton you don't. Its chairs are covered in Italian cows, adjust in 18 ways, heat and cool your bum, massage your lower back and support your lumbar. The front seats in the Phaeton are nearly as plush as the rear seats in the Rolls-Royce Phantom. And the back isn't too shabby either, what with an acre of knee room. However, the killer app is the world's first four-zone climate control system.

You know how, when it's hot out and the AC is blasting cold air cold air across your frozen knuckles even thought the rest of the car is still in the triple digits? Well, the Phaeton has regular vents to quickly heat or cool the cabin. But once the desired temperature is achieved, covers deploy over those vents and act as radiators, sparing your poor, icy hands. This feature, which came standard on the Phaeton in 2004, should be showing up on the big German and Japanese saloons, oh around 2010.

Then there's the exterior. True, I'm not the world's biggest fan of the face, which shares too many lines with its contemporary Jettas and Passats. But once you get past the A-pillars, the Phaeton is sensational. The stance, the proportions, the hulking C-pillars, the rear end; it's all perfect (especially in black). Best of all, the leviathan is stealth personified. To the layman, you're driving nothing more than a rather large Volkswagen. But to the car freak in the know, you're into something special. But special enough to park in one of the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage's 50 berths?

I enlisted some expert advice in the form of the LA Times's Dan Neil, who graciously shared his thoughts with me for the low, low price of one beer and two cigarettes.

"The Phaeton represented somebody's idea of the perfect car, and how many cars can you say that about? So it was unusually free of compromise. It was also a monument to Pi ch's willfulness, which you could say also about the Veyron — so it has a kind of kinship with that monster. The Phaeton was subversive, too. It demanded you respect it in spite of its badge."

Subversive. We love that in a car. That's why we love all Citroens unconditionally. We also salute any machine built without compromise. In fact, that's one trait all Fantasy Garage inductees share.

"It's also kind of a time-and-place car. Like the old Mercedes 500E, the Datsun 240Z, the Viper, cars that say something about the state of the industry."

Volkswagen in general and Pi ch in particular seemed unstoppable just a few short years ago. Before Porsche's takeover machinations, the weakened dollar against the Euro and VW's stale and aging product line finally affected sales, the limit — from chairman Piech's point of view — was only the sky. He'd already bought up Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti, the latter of which would be building the most powerful, fastest and most expensive car in the world. Why not build a $100,000 Volkswagen? But even more than that, why not build a redeemer? Why not build the best car in the entire world? Before you vote I would like you to consider two things. The first is that low-mileage W12s are all over the internet for about $40K. The second is that before WW2 the word Phaeton referred to a particular class of Automobile.

Sadly for us, Phaetons don't exist anymore.

Before voting, read and view the following:
Dan Neil's Requiem for a Heavyweight | Robert Farago's Phaeton review | Watch the video below for Jeremy Clarkson's take

[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our fantasy garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. If you would like to nominate a car for our Fantasy Garage, email tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "fantasy garage."]

Related:
The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage; More: Volkswagen AG: No Scirocco for US! [Internal]

Testing The Waters: Porsche Underbids On VW, All Your German Automakers Are Belong to Ferdinand Piech?

Ray Wert — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:30:45 EDT

Ok, at the moment Porsche isn't buying Volkswagen. I know there's all this talk everywhere on the Bruce-tastic Teutonic knights taking a larger stake in the automaker representing Deutschland, but an outright purchase is just not happening — yet. How do we know? Here's why. The shares of V-Dub are currently trading at around 117 Euros. Porsche's offer is 100.92 Euros, well under the market price and the lowest legal amount the Porsche boys can offer. See, it's pro forma. Under German law, whenever one company owns more than 30% of another, it must tender a buyout offer. Porsche even says as much. Michael Baumann, a company spokesperson said earlier this week to the NYT,

"we expect very few, if any, shareholders to sell us their shares at this price...this gives us the freedom to move further without taking other special steps."

What this does mean is that Porsche wants tighter control on the Beetle-maker — and that the...

...current moves are due to the rising share price of VW, as opposed to a desire to move forward at this Bruce moment in time. So, although Bloomberg News can make this claim that VW is only worth 35.8 billion, we all know that's just not the truth. Either way, we're starting to believe at some point in the future — all your German automakers are belong to Pi ch. – Ray Wert

Porsche makes a 35.8 billion bid to strengthen hold on VW [International Herald Tribune]
Porsche Raises Stake in VW, Forcing a Takeover Offer [NYT]

It's Expected, He's Gone: Bernhard No Longer to Represent Vee Dub

Davey G. Johnson — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 18:15:00 EST

Shock of shocks! After being passed over for the HMIC/Lord of All He Surveys at Volkswagen in favor of Herr Doktor Martin "Your vife, my vife" Winterkorn, it looks more and more like Wolfgang Bernhard will be bailing on the boys from Wolfsburg, making him a prime candidate to replace Tom LaSorda at Chrysler. However, there is the little issue of the two-year noncompete clause in Bernhard's contract. Does this mean that one of the brightest minds in autoexecudom will be sidelined while Pi ch continues to assert his capricious will via VW's supervisory board and Auburn Hills proves that it seemingly has no idea what it's doing without the firm hand of a German at the helm? Dr. Z, Wendelin, do something! – Davey G. Johnson

Volkswagen's Bernhard Is Poised To Leave Over Planned Shake-Up [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

DCX Planning More Job Cuts in Germany?

Davey G. Johnson — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:35:58 EST

While the wily-and-vaguely-nuts Herr Pi ch has brought in a labor man to negotiate salary and labor practices over at VW, word outta Stuttgart is that between 6,000 and 7,500 jobs will be cut at DaimlerChrysler in Germany over the next two years, on top of the 8,500 they announced plans to dump back in September. The company has refused comment on the matter, although company spokeswoman Marina Raptis says, "We are of course adhering to our employment pact without exception." Is this a last ditch effort by Schrempp to look like he was actually trying before Dieter takes over?

Reports: Further cuts could be coming at DaimlerChrysler

Related:
DCX Decides Not to Produce Mercedes in Russia [Internal]