Weissach is your basic full-service prototype shop. The staff can design pretty much anything you might want, and they can also make it. The premises even include a foundry to pour both aluminum and iron. Brake discs and gearboxes for the racing cars are done here. In fact, the 956 series of racers, which has won Le Mans for the last two consecutive years [from an '80's article -Ed.], is built and serviced at Weissach.

Before we're taken on a walk through the experimental garage, we're encouraged not to look too closely at the pieces lying around and to forget entirely the non-Porsche vehicles we might see. Not, mind you, that seeing some other make necessarily means anything; the engineers might merely be tearing apart something that catches their fancy, just to see what makes it work. But there is no hiding the fact that a lot of development is going on around here for other companies - that's a business that Porsche pursues - and confidentiality is part of the deal. This engineering-to-go concession isn't a huge moneymaker, maybe only fifteen percent of annual sales, but it's what allows Porsche to keep pushing the outside of the technical envelope with its own street and racing cars. Projects like the Group B require real engineering horsepower when they're in the development stage, but such projects also come and go. By selling off its surplus engineering time, Porsche can keep a far larger staff than any other low-volume builder. This consulting business is one of the reasons Porsche confines its model lineup to sportscars: they do not compete with the products of its engineering customers.

Porsche doesn't talk about its customers, either, because most of them want the world to think they come up with their own ideas. But some like the prestige: Yamaha has advertised its Porsche connection. The Russians talk openly about Porsche's contribution to the new Lada. It's also known that Harley-Davidson had an engine done here and the West German Leopard tank spent a lot of time at Weissach. Nonetheless, we're sworn to secrecy.

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