Volkswagen has this week agreed to pay 4.46bn Euros (£3.6bn) to take full ownership of Porsche. However, sources in Wolfsburg suggest that VW had only intended to pay a much lower list price for Porsche but was suckered in by specifying its new sports car maker with several options.
‘We only wanted to spend 3.5 billion Euros [£2.8bn],’ said one Volkswagen insider. ‘The trouble is, when we looked around the Porsche factory the reception area was pretty dull so we thought it would be nice with some better seats, and then we wanted the carpet to match, and some aluminium trimmings, and you know the speakers in there were pretty crappy so we upgraded those, and then we decided to order a pointless extra clock that sits in the middle of the desk, and before you know it, we are paying almost another 10 billion Euros. Ja, it is pretty easy to get carried away.’
Volkswagen management has already come up with a way to justify the enormous over-spend on Porsche. ‘Hey, why not treat ourselves, it’s not every day you buy a sports car maker,’ said one VW board member. ‘This will make us look younger, right?’
