Boxster fires up on VW line

The Boxster was initially assembled in Stuttgart and received only rear and side body components from Osnabruck.
The Boxster was initially assembled in Stuttgart and received only rear and side body components from Osnabruck.
Contributing Journalist
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After last month completing its “integrated automotive group'' - effectively Volkswagen buying Porsche - the pair are now intensifying their marriage.

At this week's production line ceremony in Germany, Volkswagen's chairman Martin Winterkorn, says: “The production of the Porsche Boxster is a clear sign that Volkswagen and Porsche are growing together fast.'' Production in the north-western German town of Osnabruck, 250km west of Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, isn't the first for Porsche.

The Karmann - now Volkswagen - plant made the Porsche 914 (from 1969 to 1976) and the 968 (from 1991 to 1994). Since March 2011, it has also built the Golf Cabriolet. Porsche is making the Boxster in a model mix with the Porsche 911 at its main plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen.

It says that production at Osnabruck - which replaces Valmet Automotive's deal that has made the Boxster in Finland - will relieve a bottleneck because the Zuffenhausen plant can't cope with demand.

The plant has 1800 staff and can make about 100,000 vehicles a year, including the body, paint and assembly shops. The Boxster was initially assembled in Stuttgart and received only rear and side body components from Osnabruck. Porsche's deputy chairman Holger Haerter says that the end of Valmet's contract to build the Boxster also affects the next Cayman.

He says Cayman's production will go to Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria. But that plan fell apart. Now the Cayman, due early 2013, will also be built at Osnabruck.

Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

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