Making Audi A Player

[ATTDCS!TMBWPO1!sjagernaut@dcstm1.attmail.com (Stephen Jagernauth)]

 Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com> wrote on Thu, 16 Jan 1997 08:11:24 -0800:

<snip>

>To jump ahead in time, the Piech family who owns VW bought Porsche in
>the mid/late seventies and they were really the ones that helped Porsche

Dr. Ferdinand Piech is the son of Louise Piech, Ferry Porsche's sister, and 
that makes his grandfather
the original Dr. Ferdinand Porsche so the family ties are there.   Piech 
worked at Porsche in the '60s and avidly supported racing as the way of 
improving the breed.     One of his accomplishments is his design of the 
original 2.0L 911 6cyl boxer.   Never heard of VW owning Porsche.   Porsche 
has always been
family-owned.

>be successful during the seventies and early eighties, until the Porsche
>family bought back Porsche in the late '80's.

1/3 of Porsche's stock is publicly traded.  The rest is owned by the 
Porsche/Piech families.

>The Porsche Horizontally
>opposed 4-cylinder (used in the 356, 912, 914, 924) is very similar to
>he 4-cylinder that was put in the VW beetle.  Many of the components
>used between VW and Porsche were common to both cars.

The 356 used a VW aircooled engine, the 912 the same motor as the  356SC. 
 The 914 used a VW Type IV engine.   The 924 had a VW-designed block with 
Porsche-designed head and built by Audi and is an inline 4cyl.   It was 
basically the same engine used in the Audi 100 and VW van in the 70s. The 
914 was a joint venture between VW and Porsche and was marketed in Europe as 
a VW and in the US as a Porsche.

>There has been a lot of development that each company shares, and Audi
>actually was the one to help Porsche most recently in the development of
>the 959 drivetrain, Carrera 4 drivetrain, and the '96 + turbo
>drivetrain.  VW was actually the company that built the Porsche 924 and
>944 for Porsche.

This is absurd!    VW was not involved at all and Audi's involvement was 
limited to assembling the PORSCHE-DESIGNED 924/944 in their Neckarsulm 
assembly plant.  The various drivetrains used in the AWD Porsches are very 
different from Audi's Quattro system and were designed in-house at Weissach. 
 I have an article written by the chief Porsche designer for their 959/C4. 
  Audis awd have a fwd-bias, Porsches have a rwd-bias, in terms of 
torque-split front-to-rear.

Hope this clears up some confusion.

Regards,

Steve Jagernauth  ---------->  sjagernauth@attmail.com
Audi 5k X 3 and 1 Porsche,
2 ex-Porsches, 2  ex-VWs