Rolf Sprenger was a versatile engineer whose Porsche career was founded almost entirely on customer service. “If I want a trailer (caravan) with a swimming pool, Herr Sprenger will build it for me,” so said Peter Schutz to a potential client, while Sprenger looking on, would groan inwardly: yet another customer whose expectations had been over-excited would have to be brought … [Read more...]
Profiles
Never a dull moment – the career of Toine Hezemans
One of the Netherlands’ most successful racers, Toine Hezemans is part of a motorsport dynasty that began with his father who raced Porsches in the 1950s. This family tradition continued with Toine who began racing 911s in the late ‘60s, but after his own career ended, his first son Mike, then picked up the baton and raced 964s in the early years of the Porsche Cup. Speaking … [Read more...]
It’s been a long journey – the Norbert Singer interview
Norbert Singer must rank as one of the most successful race engineers in Porsche’s long and glittering motorsport history. Porsche Road & Race spoke to him about his four-decade career with Porsche, the race cars he helped develop and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “It’s been a long journey,” Norbert Singer said with a smile, and how right he was. Growing up in the 1950s and … [Read more...]
Ernst Fuhrmann – the inspiration behind the 911 Turbo
Porsche’s first CEO is frequently maligned as the man who tried to kill off the 911. There is far more to his Porsche career than this misconception as he was the inspiration behind the 911 Turbo. Viennese Ernst Fuhrmann was one of Ferry Porsche’s first post war employees, joining the Konstructionsbüro, then based in Gmünd in 1947. The pair worked together on several … [Read more...]
Anatole Lapine
Anatole Lapine who was in charge of styling at Porsche under two disparate CEOs, Fuhrmann and Schutz, looks back on quite a CV: Chevrolet Corvette, Opel GT, Porsche 928, Porsche 964. But there is a lot more to this designer whose career spans two continents and most of the second half of the twentieth century, and who for thirty years, was close to Ferry Porsche. Son of … [Read more...]
Roland Kussmaul
For many years, the éminence grise of Porsche’s competition department, but now in retirement, Roland Kussmaul seems busier than ever. He left Porsche officially at the end of 2008, but our attempts to meet him were thwarted for several years by his amazingly busy schedule. More recently, we were luckier: despite a programme still just as full, he found time to meet us at his … [Read more...]
Porsche congratulates motorsport legend Hans Herrmann
Hans Herrmann, one of the most successful and popular racing drivers to join the Porsche AG works team, celebrates his 90th birthday this year on February 23. The endurance and Monoposto specialist, born in Stuttgart in 1928, is regarded as one of the most reliable and consistent race drivers of all time. In the course of his motor sport career, Hans Herrmann won more than 80 … [Read more...]
Tilman Brodbeck remembers
To be able to write on your résumé that you worked for one of Porsche’s CEOs would be quite an achievement. Tilman Brodbeck can however do a little better than that, for in a 40-year career, he was assistant to no fewer than five successive Porsche presidents. But, as he tells us, he held other posts too. When he started at Zuffenhausen, the company was still ruled by Ferry … [Read more...]
Interview with Mark Webber
Porsche’s return to the top category of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) was announced by Wolfgang Hatz, Porsche AG Board of Management Member for Research and Development, on Saturday 8 December 2012, on the occasion of the end of season ‘Night of Champions’ celebration. The first rollout of the new LMP1 car was planned for mid-2013 and on 27 June that year it was … [Read more...]
Mike de ‘Udy and the Carrera Six
The Carrera Six, as Porsche officially called the 906, was a radically different car from its predecessor, the 904 GTS. The 904 was a sleek glass fibre bodied racer penned by Butzi Porsche, and it took over as Porsche’s competition model following such illustrious forebears as the RS 718 and RS 61 which brought the Stuttgart manufacturer so many victories in the early sixties. … [Read more...]
