I’d not visited the Goodwood Festival of Speed for some time but the promise of rare and interesting Porsche cars – there to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the company was too difficult to resist.
To be more accurate – the 70th anniversary relates to the first Porsche badged car being built in 1948 as Porsche GmbH, Konstruktionsbüro für Motoren und Fahrzeugbau was actually founded in 1931!
A visit to Le Mans Classic has long eluded me but this year all barriers and sensible-head reasons-not-to-go seemed to disappear.
The Yellow Peril was running well (bar a last minute clutch change) and the problem of abandoning the Mrs for a long weekend to go off on a car related jolly was resolved by taking her along .
Darwinian principles can be applied as much to automotive design and manufacturing as they have been to evolutionary biology. “Survival of the fittest” has been the recipe of enduring success for a number of car marques but it has also seen the extinction of many more.
From the very first cars – certain marques have driven down developmental cul-de-sacs whilst others have, through inspired progressive improvement, survived to the present day.
As one of the most successful surviving marques – it’s interesting to analyse some of the factors and earlier designs that assured Porsche’s initial establishment, success and ultimate longevity as a manufacturer of road and race cars.
