Today I arrived in Leipzig.  Well, first I left Berlin,
and my bicycle, behind.  I hope it finds a good home.

Leipzig is trying to evolve, there is construction
everywhere, and a few major companies have set up
operation, like Quelle, DHL, BMW opened a factory
here just last week, and Porsche has had a factory
here for a few years.  Next year Leipzig will host
part of the World Cup 2006.

I went to an appointment to visit Porsche's assembly
plant here in Leipzig; the tour guide was a beautiful
German girl with a British English accent.  Only myself
and one other gentleman, also coincidentally from
San Francisco, were along for the tour.

The rest of my report is a rather dry report that
most likely reads like a sales brochure -- it exists
only to remind me of my trip!

On arrival I caught a glimpse of a Carrera GT making
its way around the test track -- it's nice to know
that every single Cayenne and Carrera GT is driven
on the test track before delivery.

At the assembly plant, you are first shown to the
"customer center", where there are a number of historic
Porsche cars, such as
one of the 917 LeMans winners, a GT1 LeMans winner,
an open wheel formula car, and one of the 959's from
the Paris-Dakar Rally.  Our host mentioned that the
cars were left as-is from the races, and having said
this, walked up to the 959, popped the door open, and
let us see -- indeed there was still sand on the floor,
and a racey musty smell; she then slammed the door shut.

There were also other exotics, such as an aluminum
bodied 928, a 1970s 911 equipped with a semi-automatic
gearbox, and a turbo version of a 964 coupe.

On a lower floor, there was the range of current models,
from the various 996 cars, to the 997 and 997 cabriolet,
a new Boxster, and centrally on a stage a Carrera GT and
Cayenne.  I was invited to sit in the cars on the floor,
but not on the central stage, and so got to pretend I
was the happy owner of a 997 cabriolet and a new Boxster.

There was another group of Germans visiting the showroom
at the same time as we happened to be there, and their
host had keys to the Carrera GT; apparently this was
something special, and after demonstrating the various
areas of the car to the Germans (including the speed
activated spoiler at the rear), I was able to sneak
into their group and drop into the carbon fiber drivers
seat, adjust the seat (manually, thankfully!) to my liking,
and pretend I was the proud owner of this half-million dollar car.

All such things come to an end, and thus it was time
to move on to the production facilities themselves,
in a separate building across the street.  On the way
I asked about the upcoming Porsche Cayman, the mid
engined coupe announced by Porsche which will sit
between the Boxster and 997 in price (though, I
suspect, will easily give the 997 a run for its
money)  Apparently the Cayman will be built in
Stuttgart and Finland, alongside the Boxster, not
in Leipzig as has been speculated.

The assembly facilities themselves were quite interesting,
mostly for the fact that that's really all they are --
assembly facilities.  For the Cayenne, Porsche receives
the body shell, complete with glass and even headlights,
from its manufacture point in the Czech Republic.  The
motor arrives from Stuttgart, and the suspension
components, drivetrain, etc, arrive by truck.  From what
I could tell, the front and rear suspension components
are already assembled, in Leipzig they attach the engine,
drivetrain, exhaust, and suspension; where you end up with
something that looks like a rolling chassis on top of an
automated "cart" which is then placed under one of the
body shells, and the two "pieces" are bolted together.

The process of torqing the bolts down is nearly completely
automated, the assembly workers mate a "gun" to the bottom
of each of the points, where it is automatically torqued
and registered into the computer -- the computer keeps track
of each place that is attached, as part of quality control.

The Carrera GT is also mostly just "assembled" from premade
parts, apparently a lot of the parts come from Italy, such
as the carbon-composite monocoque (I got the impression that
all 1500 monocoques are already made, and now they are just
slowly completing all the cars at a rate of 3 per day)

The monocoque apparanently has an aluminum honeycomb inside
with a few layers of carbon over it -- I'm not sure of the
specifics.

Certainly an interesting car though, the midplaced engine
and rear suspension sits on a fork shaped hook which is
separate from the monocoque.  The front of the monocoque
extends far enough forward to get the wheels mounted, and
the suspension points are directly underneath the windscreen.

I noticed that as the Carrera GT is assembled, whenever a
particular car is not being worked on, they place a cloth
cover over the car, in an already spotless factory.  There
were about 20 Carrera GTs in various states inside the
factory, and countless Cayennes.  The Cayennes are produced
during two shifts, take a mere five hours to assemble, and
are shipped out at a rate of 150 per day.

Okay, that's it for facts.  More later with opinions.

James
May 18 2005