[V8] A rear engined VW in my garage.....again!

[diemarthadie at aol.com]

That started my day better than the usual coffee :)







I want a soccer-kicking Jalapeno van!







I wouldn't want to make Wilhelm Kaiser von Otto mad... although he does 
have a history of unifying Germans











-----Original Message-----



From: Roger Woodbury <rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com>



To: v8 at audifans.com



Sent: Sun, Jul 19, 2009 6:22 am



Subject: [V8] A rear engined VW in my garage.....again!











































I read this morning that a deal is close to being finalized whereby



Volkswagen will acquire Porsche.  This is another report in the 
continuing



saga in which Porsche was going to acquire VW, or VW would acquire 
Porsche,



or Toyota was going to acquire both of them, or Mercedes-Benz was going 
to



invade Wolfsburg and kill them all.  It now seems that the fury has died



down, and it will be VW who will be buying 49% of Porsche NOW, and the 
rest



later.  Porsche is out of money, out of credit, and because its CEO 
Wendelin



Wiedeking never learned anything from history, out of luck.















So I can see VW stepping in quickly to rectify some recent mistakes 
made by



Porsche in its ignorant assumption that there would always be a huge 
desire



for its vastly over engineered, over priced and somewhat under made 
cars in



the US, the middle east and China.  Here is what could happen:















*   Plans for production of the Porsche Panamera will be scrapped.  With



132 buttons on the interior of the car, and the overall delivered cost 
of



over $115,000 considered simply too high for any reasonable sales in 
the US



especially, the new CFO of VW's division will cut the project.  Rumors 
are



that VW will appoint Wilhelm Kaiser von Otto as the new CFO, while 
Weideking



will become CEO of Porsche Group, essentially a backwater job.  Kaiser 
von



Otto is notorious as a hatchetman in car circles, and he has been 
quoted in



some of the automotive press as saying that, "Americans are too stupid 
and



poorly educated to be able to remember what 130 buttons in a car are 
for,



anyway."



*   The "new" Porsche division will get a slightly upmarket edition of



VW's Chrysler Town and Country sourced van introduced this year.  No 
name



has been selected yet for this new to Porsche production platform, but 
it is



code named "paprika" internally.  Rumors persist that at time of



introduction, it will be called the "Jalapeno" to imply a familial



connection with Porsche "Cayenne".  The new van will not carry the 
venerable



VW V6 engine either.  Supposedly work has been underway for two major



changes to the van platform, and the key switch will be moved to the 
left



hand side of the steering wheel, and the engine will be a slightly 
detuned



version of the flat six used in the Porsche Boxter.  Aimed at the 
upscale



soccer mom, the new Van will also have an innovative front bumper system



tied in to the emergency brake assist program.  When a collision is 
deemed



imminent by the computer, the front bumper extends sixty centimeters as 
a



defensive move, taking 13 nano seconds.  Reports from Stuttgart indicate



that there are difficulties with this system however.  Internally it is



called "the soccer kick", and so far it has worked entirely too well.  
Every



time a Jalapena Van has been driven in traffic, when coming to a stop 
behind



other vehicles, it has a tendancy to automatically deploy if a Toyota or



Honda is immediately in front.  No programming explanation has been 
found



for this defect as yet.  Rumors that French cars are also struck by "the



soccer kick" system, are denied by Porsche management.



*   The Cayman sports car will be getting a serious makeover.  Instead



of its current water cooled engine, a version of VW's original beetle 
1200



cc air cooled engine will be used in this vehicle.  Citing lowered 
weight



factors, the new four cylinder air cooled boxer engine will have four 
Weber



carburetors, and a unique cylinder head design that gives each of the 20



valves its own camshaft.  The engine develops a reported 327 
horsepower, and



its use is a return to the strengths that made VW what it is, according 
to



an internal memorandum.















Both Porsche and VW are controlled by members of the same family, 
however



they are not all friends.  Porsche has made a terrific attempt at 
buying VW,



but its development of first the financially successful Cayenne, then 
the



reptilian Cayman, and now the Panamera (a car that no one will want, few



could afford and many fewer could service) has resulted in the small 
niche



car company becoming so burdened with debt that it is close to failure.



This misreading of history, and miscalculation of its market position 
will



virtually require a takeover by a larger more thoughtful company, and 
VW is



the only real option according to news reports.  Rumors that Porsche had



considered a takeover offer from Toyota are vigorously denied by Porsche



management.  Also vigorously denied by Porsche are rumors that top board



members have been quoted as saying that they hold Toyota responsible 
for not



relieving Von Paulus's sixth army group at Stalingrad.























My friend, the European auto journalist may be visiting here in August 
for



his annual Maine lobster.  He usually has lots of interesting automobile



tales that come out under the spell of Maine lobster and a nice little



German Riesling that I keep in the wine cellar.  I may have more on this



breaking news later on in the summer.















Remember: you heard it first here!















Roger







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