In a speech yesterday in London, Porsche head Wendelin Wiedeking hit back at critics, according to Reuters. Speaking at the Autocar Awards, where he received the award for Outstanding Achievement, he joked that the award must have been decided before the announcement that Porsche had bought a major shareholding in Volkswagen. He was adamant that the tie up made sense for both companies as it permitted long-term strategic planning. He said that the criticism in the British financial press was a result of hedge funds, “based just down the road from here” being disappointed that they could not buy VW and make a quick buck. Wiedeking also said that given that Audi, BMW and Mercedes will all be over a million cars a year by 2008, there is no reason why Porsche could not grow past 100,000 units a year and keep its exclusivity.
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11/16, 11:30 AM
posted by:
reboot
while I admire Porsche cars a lot and appreciate what this technology can do for the 911, it is not the first time that Variable Nozzle Turbocharging has been done in a production car.
from allpar.com: The fruits of innovative thinking came to Shelby Automobiles, in the form of the ‘89 CSX-VNT. The car was again based on the Shadow ES, but with a list of changes that was Shelby’s most comprehensive to date. The engine was based on the previous year’s 2.2 Turbo II, but was upgrade to what Chrysler called the Turbo IV (note: Turbo III was Chryslerspeak for the 16-valve 2.2 introduced two years later) through the world’s first production use of a Variable Nozzle Turbo, or VNT.
Based on Formula 1 technology, the Garrett turbo utilized moving vanes to manage the amount and speed of exhaust gasses passing through the turbine, causing it to act like a small turbo that “spools up” to boost quickly at low engine rpm, thereby reducing ‘turbo lag’. At higher engine RPM, the vanes opened to allow more volume to pass (albeit at a lower airspeed), changing it into a bigger turbo-and eliminating the need for a wastegate because the boost level could be controlled by computer management of the VNT vanes.