[edevinney]

Terrific read, thanks. It's astonishing that Wiedeking, who remade Porsche after Bohn & Bez blew the company's carefully shepherded wad on the expensive diversion of the 989, would himself do the same thing with the VW takeover attempt.

I've been re-reading "Comeback", a story of the rebirth of the US car industry after the debacles of the 70s and early 80s. I first read it in b-school 10 years ago at the peak of the revival, and now we're back to Chrysler and Fiat merging (they were close in the late 80s), GM going bankrupt and Porsche out of cash.

Cyclical asshattery seems part and parcel of the industry. VW and Fiat seem to be well positioned this time, and Ford is hanging on - maybe the trick is just keeping the asshat cycle sufficiently out of sync with the industry that you're recovered when everyone else is floundering.