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Ferdinand Piech, auto exec who made VW the biggest carmarker in Europe, dies at 82
Obituaries
Ferdinand Piëch, auto exec who made VW the biggest carmarker in Europe, dies at 82
By Matt Schudel
August 27 at 7:39 PM
Ferdinand Piëch, a hard-charging Volkswagen executive who transformed the company into Europe’s largest automaker, overcoming scandals and dispatching business executives with a ruthless management style, died Aug. 25 in the German region of Bavaria. He was 82. ... The German newspaper Bild reported that he collapsed while eating dinner at a restaurant in Rosenheim, Germany, and died at a nearby hospital.
As the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the Austrian-born Mr. Piëch was a member of one of Europe’s most prominent automotive families. In the 1930s, his grandfather founded the Porsche auto company and designed, at the request of Adolf Hitler, the beetle-shaped “people’s car” — or Volkswagen — for ordinary citizens.
A brilliant engineer in his own right, Mr. Piëch had a leading role in the 1960s in developing the Porsche 911 sports car and the Porsche 917, a racecar that could reach a top speed of 240 mph. ... Ferdinand Porsche’s first Beetles came off the assembly line in 1938 and, during World War II, Volkswagen was a major producer of military vehicles, aircraft engines and other equipment for the German war effort. Mr. Piëch’s father was chief executive of Volkswagen during the war and was a member of the Nazi party.
After designing sports cars, the younger Mr. Piëch had hoped to become the top executive of the family-run Porsche business in Germany. He had to shelve that ambition, however, when his mother and uncle — Ferdinand Porsche’s children — grew weary of intrafamily disputes and ruled that none of Porsche’s descendants could hold a management position with the company. ... Mr. Piëch then moved to Audi, a German automaker that was a Volkswagen subsidiary.
“All the quarreling made me realize that I had the qualifications to prove myself outside of the family,” he wrote in a 2002 autobiography. “I wasn’t so certain that some members of my loving family could do the same.”
At Audi, Mr. Piëch helped develop a five-cylinder engine and a four-wheel-drive system that helped burnish the image of the once-dowdy brand. He moved up in the company hierarchy, and by the time he became board chairman in 1988, Audi was a credible rival of Germany’s two top luxury carmakers, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
....
Mr. Piëch bought several other carmakers, including Italy’s Lamborghini and Bugatti, Britain’s Bentley and the Czech brand Skoda. He engineered concessions from Germany’s powerful labor unions, reducing the workweek to four days while saving most workers’ jobs.
....
Ferdinand Piëch, auto exec who made VW the biggest carmarker in Europe, dies at 82
By Matt Schudel
August 27 at 7:39 PM
Ferdinand Piëch, a hard-charging Volkswagen executive who transformed the company into Europe’s largest automaker, overcoming scandals and dispatching business executives with a ruthless management style, died Aug. 25 in the German region of Bavaria. He was 82. ... The German newspaper Bild reported that he collapsed while eating dinner at a restaurant in Rosenheim, Germany, and died at a nearby hospital.
As the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the Austrian-born Mr. Piëch was a member of one of Europe’s most prominent automotive families. In the 1930s, his grandfather founded the Porsche auto company and designed, at the request of Adolf Hitler, the beetle-shaped “people’s car” — or Volkswagen — for ordinary citizens.
A brilliant engineer in his own right, Mr. Piëch had a leading role in the 1960s in developing the Porsche 911 sports car and the Porsche 917, a racecar that could reach a top speed of 240 mph. ... Ferdinand Porsche’s first Beetles came off the assembly line in 1938 and, during World War II, Volkswagen was a major producer of military vehicles, aircraft engines and other equipment for the German war effort. Mr. Piëch’s father was chief executive of Volkswagen during the war and was a member of the Nazi party.
After designing sports cars, the younger Mr. Piëch had hoped to become the top executive of the family-run Porsche business in Germany. He had to shelve that ambition, however, when his mother and uncle — Ferdinand Porsche’s children — grew weary of intrafamily disputes and ruled that none of Porsche’s descendants could hold a management position with the company. ... Mr. Piëch then moved to Audi, a German automaker that was a Volkswagen subsidiary.
“All the quarreling made me realize that I had the qualifications to prove myself outside of the family,” he wrote in a 2002 autobiography. “I wasn’t so certain that some members of my loving family could do the same.”
At Audi, Mr. Piëch helped develop a five-cylinder engine and a four-wheel-drive system that helped burnish the image of the once-dowdy brand. He moved up in the company hierarchy, and by the time he became board chairman in 1988, Audi was a credible rival of Germany’s two top luxury carmakers, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
....
Mr. Piëch bought several other carmakers, including Italy’s Lamborghini and Bugatti, Britain’s Bentley and the Czech brand Skoda. He engineered concessions from Germany’s powerful labor unions, reducing the workweek to four days while saving most workers’ jobs.
....