Archive for November, 2009

A cancelled 911, yesterday

The protracted power struggle between Volkswagen and Porsche is at last over with the former unexpectedly taking control of the latter in a role reversal many industry experts did not expect. Indeed, sources within Volkswagen say the German giant sometimes forgets that it owns the sports car maker and not the other way around, forcing it to write a reminder on a Post-It note bearing a simple German phrase that literally translates as ‘Ha ha!’

This week, however, reports suggest that VW is rapidly warming to its role as Porsche’s new master as insiders revealed that the Wolfsburg-based car giant decided to play a prank on its latest acquisition by telling them the famous 911 sports car was to be cancelled.

‘Oh ja, that was like totally amusing,’ said VW board member Dr Rudi Hackenburg. ‘We like totally told them that the 911 programme was to be cancelled because it would clash with, like, our plans to make some rear engined Polo or some shit like that. Oh man, you should have seen their faces’.

Volkswagen’s executive director of research and development, Dr Wolfgang Schiele, backs up his colleague’s Porsche prank story. ‘Oh man, did Rudi tell you about that? Dude it was awesome. All these Porsche guys are like, Boo hoo, you can’t cancel the 911 and we were like, we so can too cuz we, like, totally own your asses now, and they were all like “But it’s our core model and epitomises all our key values” and then like Tha K-man [VW executive director of engineering Dr Klaus Rieble] pretended to, like, use his phone and said “Wait, I’ll just call someone who gives a shit”. Man, it was so funny I almost puked’.

Dr Schiele later confirmed that the Volkswagen board continued in a similar vein for another ‘like 20 minutes or something’ until executive director of powertrain Dr Jurgen Klausen activated a pre-planned Powerpoint slide which read simply ‘PWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!111111’ after which all 12 members of the Volkswagen board present at the meeting reportedly ‘like totally shit themselves, like we were totally laughing and those Porsche guys, they were like ‘no way’ and they like totally left the room, and then we like totally laughed some more and then, like, went over to Tha K-man’s house cuz his dad always hides his stash of beer under the counter and his mom is like totally hot too’.

The 911 prank incident has caused such ruffled feathers amongst Porsche management that Volkswagen’s PR director Dr Hartmut Welter was forced to make the following statement to the press; ‘The integration of two proud and established companies is never going to be straightforward. However, we believe that the integration process is running smoothly and that we now have a roadmap for future product development and strategy. Also, we have totally thought of some more, like, awesome pranks we’re gonna pull on those Porsche dudes like, you know, telling them that the next Boxster has to be based on the Golf or some shit. Oh man, they’re like totally funny and… shhhhh shhhhhh shhhhhhhh, they’re coming. Everyone act, like totally normal…’

Following the surprise news that General Motors will not sell Vauxhall and Opel to a conglomerate comprising of a Russian bank and a Canadian flow of hot molten rock, details are now emerging about how the American car giant will seek to appease the companies that were in line to take over its European subsidiaries.

Under the terms of a new deal currently being drafted in Detroit, Sberbank and Magma will be allowed access to Vauxhall and Opel on alternate weekends during which they will be permitted to undertake any unsupervised activities they so wish such as taking an early prototype of the next generation Zafira to the zoo or inviting CAD/CAM data for the upcoming Corsa facelift and its friends to have a party at their house.

GM sources say they will be as flexible as possible in allowing their one time Russian-Canadian partner to see the development of Vauxhall and Opel over the next few years and stress that there will be many opportunities for access outside of the formal twice-a-month schedule. ‘Sberbank and Magma will get to see plenty of Vauxhall and Opel,’ said a senior GM source. ‘For example, next spring we were thinking of taking Suzuki to Sea World and Disneyland in California. We’ll be away for a whole week, and that will be a chance for those guys to really spend some quality time with Vauxhall and Opel while we’re not around doing things like finding out if it’s still friends with Fiat and seeing how it’s getting on with its mass redundancy planning homework’.

However, GM’s generous access plan hasn’t been well received in all quarters. In Sweden, another of the car giant’s former offspring SAAB is clearly upset by the careful handling of the Anglo-Germa-Russio-Canadia-laval situation. ‘Oh wow, they’re being nice to Vauxhall and Opel… again’, SAAB spat. ‘Typical. And what did I get from them for my birthday this year? Just a crappy mixtape. Oh yea, and the entire production line for the forthcoming 9-5. Booooring. Pffffft’.