Porsche to take 20 percent stake in VW?
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9479897/

Not sure why a company with 11 consecutive gains in profit would want to plunk money down on what is for lack of a better term a real loser in the automotive world for the past 10 years running ...

I'm guessing its probably more a gesture or something. I know that VW and Porsche have worked very closely with each other, often "loaning" out their engineers and designers with each other amongst the sharing of platforms and what not.

My friend that used to design for the now defunct Porsche design studio here in Cali was often shipped over to Germany to work on a couple VW projects, and sometimes Audi projects all while getting paid via Porsche. He said it seemed like he wasn't sure anymore for which company he was actually working for.

Good question.

My Wild-A$$-Guess is that they may want/need to leverage VW's production capabilities. . . but buying a 20% stake in a turkey seems like a fairly ludicrous way of doing it. Once again, W-A-G.

That way the new GT will have a W12 wedged in it!! other than that i dunno? :hello:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really understand this purchase. I thought VW, Audi, Porsche, and Bentley were all under the VW group name (kinda like Ford with all their makes). Is this not true? :thinker:

I don't think that is accurate, VAG had $923 million in net profits in 2004 and I believe the preceding years they did even better than that.

http://hoovers.com/volkswagen/--ID__41853-...factsheet.xhtml

Even if they are not doing as well as late they are still the biggest auto manufacturer in Europe and the world sales leader in diesel engines(and they make a lot more of them than Honda does IMAs).

From what I can see the only major car manufacturers I would avoid investing in are Fiat, Mitsubishi, GM, and Ford.

Maybe the 20% stake on the company will raise the prices of current VW's even higher. :rolleyes:

lol... yeah in a few years people will be paying M5 money for a Passat with the way that car keeps going up and up in price.

According to a discussion on one of the business channels Porsche partners with VW in many operations and VW is in a major capital crunch. This investment was dictated by the family Porsche owners to preserve and expand the relationship, so there was business motivation but that was not all there was to it.

thats a W16