The Volkswagen plant at Osnabrück – once a Karmann factory – started series production of the Porsche Boxster on Wednesday (19 September). The plan had been announced last March.
“Volkswagen and Porsche completed the creation of an integrated automotive group together in August and are now able to significantly intensify their cooperation,” the automaker said in a press release.
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Chairman Martin Winterkorn said: “The production of the Boxster in Osnabrück is a clear sign that Volkswagen and Porsche are growing together fast. Production in Osnabrück creates synergy effects that will benefit customers, employees and the plant.”
Porsche is also producing the Boxster in a model mix with the 911 at its main plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. Production at Osnabrück will relieve a bottleneck as the capacity available at Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen is currently inadequate.
Porsche chairman Matthias Müller said the decision to produce the new Boxster at Osnabrück was due to the special competence of the plant workers.
“The key factor in this decision was the very good expertise of the workforce at Volkswagen Osnabrück. Our sports cars are in the best hands here. After all, we all have the same understanding of quality. Osnabrück will become part of our success story.”
The Osnabrück facility formerly belonged to former contract auto assembler Wilhelm Karmann until it entered bankruptcy in April 2009. Volkswagen took over the plant and began producing the Golf cabriolet there in May 2011. At the time, VW confirmed the factory, with capacity for about 100,000 vehicles, could also provide overflow manufacturing for the Boxster and its spin-off coupe, the Cayman.
Porsche said the Lower Saxony factory had made bodies for its 356 hardtop coupé in the 1960s and for the 968 in the ’90s. From 1969 to 1975, over 115,000 914s were also fully assembled in Osnabrück.
While the new Boxster was initially made solely in Stuttgart, Volkswagen Osnabrück had been supplying the rear and side parts of the car from the outset.
