I was asked a very interesting question yesterday at Anglesey.
With what model did Porsche's become disposable ?
"The day they adopted the advice of Toyota lean manufacturing, this modern design for manufacture / design for assembly approach took a hand crafted 911 product containing craft skills from the 50's, and replaced it with Toyota assembly techniques and the outcome of the ULSAB project. ULSAB (Ultra Light Steel Auto Body) was a project funded by the Steel Industry to head off the threat of Aluminium as showcased in the A8 / Honda NSX in the early 90's. By 1996 Porsche had a 986 / 996 design with many common parts (good idea) but the metal work was not to the standard of 944, 911, 964, 993 Porsche production. It was more akin to Starlet, Corolla, Carina, Supra. Tinny doors, tinny roof etc. We wont mention the dry to wet Sump engine compromises made at the time.
The Brand carried huge cred' - TAG F1, Le-Mans and motorsport generally had seen to that over many years.
The Cost savings were retained by the Company, to the point it became the most profitable Car Co in the world in terms of % margin. The penny pinching continues to this day, apparently it extends to the product endurance testing which they were once so famous for, to the extent that a new GT3 model design or manufacturing process is so near the wire, that it has become a modern day version of Longbridge product engineering with catastrophic engine failures.
Time to bring Toyota back and get a refresher course on Reliability.
Ferdinand would not be impressed.
For genuine bullet-proof engineering-led Product design, I suggest Woking, not Stuttgart
......any way, did he/her buy anything?
]
