Re: baaaad porsche

[Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>]

I've stayed out of this for several days now, but Derek has pushed me 
over the edge.  Porsche (the men and the company) has done a lot of 
good work.  The Auto Union GP cars, the stillborn Cisitalia GP car, 
the 90x racers, the 917, 962, etc.  The 928 is an all-time great car, 
and the 924/944/968 is a respectable wannabe Alfetta.  As has been 
pointed out already, the rear-engined cars are inherently flawed. 
Porsche didn't think it was a good idea when he started with the 356, 
he just wanted to make a sports car from VW components just like 
Cisitalia was doing with FIAT components.  He knew that a mid-engine 
setup was the way to go for serious performance, but that wasn't the 
intention of 1.6L, VW-based 356.  But this slighty less-than-ideal 
sports car became ridiculously popular for no apparent reason (see: 
Honda Civic) and morphed into a much more powerful, more serious 
sports car that never should have existed, given the nature of 
rear-engined cars (Porsche's use of this layout for an economy car 
was no mistake--he recognized the packaging benefits of such a 
layout, but wasn't ready to take the FWD plunge, but the cars that 
bore his name weren't economy cars, hence the term "horribly 
flawed").  Just as the Honda Civic has managed to become the basis 
for the first FWD car to do a quarter mile in under 10 sec, the 
Porsche 911 found success on the race track primarily due to its 
popularity.  As a mediocre car becomes popular for one reason or 
another, it just becomes more successful as more and more people pour 
time and money into developing it, and a sort of viscious cycle 
develops.  The fact that it was designed by skilled engineers and 
made from very good components obviously helped.  But its basic 
design is flawed and Porsche knew that.  That's why they "replaced" 
it with the 928 in the late '70s.  They knew better than to think 
their reputation would keep selling archaic 911s forever.  But they 
were wrong on that count, 911s outsold 928s for over a decade and 
eventually the engineers lost out to the accountants and the 928 
died, and the 911 lived.  Damn shame.  The majority of Porsche buyers 
wanted to spend their money on an image rather than a supercar, and 
that was that--the brilliant engineers of Stuttgart were relegated to 
further refining a design that was never meant to be more than a 
hot-rod VW, in an impressive attempt to overcome the laws of physics. 
Well, now they build SUVs, but that's another story...

At 6:33 PM -0500 3/19/02, alfa-digest wrote:
>Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 13:58:48 -0800
>From: "Derek Ealy" <dealy663@domain.elided>
>Subject: Re: Re: baaaad porsche
>
>I suppose that is why all those 356s and 911s racked up so many victories
>on the race courses in the 50s 60s & 70s? Porsche really must not have a
>clue about suspension design and engine placement. All those people who
>have bought the 911 over the past thirty years of this incredibly stupid
>design must be either idiots or completely insane. I'm tellin' ya that
>wily old fart Ferdinand and his progeny really must have silver tounges
>in order to force upon the whole world the likes of the Auto Union grand
>prix cars of the 30's, the volkswagen Beetle, the 917, the 956/962, the
>GT1 and the apparently unsafe at any speed 911.
>
>
>
>What nerve!

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