At every news conference for every new car or truck introduction since the days of, say, Watson and Crick, an eager and sweaty brand manager has stood up and said something to the effect of: "The Durango 95 Mark III is a reflection of who we are as a company, our brand DNA."
This assertion is generally nonsense, a dump truck of smelly marketing sardines poured at our feet and called caviar. But it's an essential lie, especially for products that are resurrections of grand old marques or nameplates. Take, for example, Bugatti.
Compared with Ettore Bugatti's gritty factory in Molsheim, France, before World War II, the new Bugatti factory -- a futuristic assembly hall in nearby Dorlisheim -- might as well be some off-world colony. The new Bugatti, a whole-cloth creation of Volkswagen Group, has zero to do with the Ettore Bugatti, Type 57SCs, Royales and the like. But what is the new Bugatti Veyron without the back story, the evocative narrative of the old company? A $1.7-million VW.
There are a few plausible exceptions. Harley-Davidson is one. Porsche is another.
This summer I've had a chance to bookend Porsche by driving the very first Porsche -- the Gmund Porsche 356-001 (so called because it was fettled in Gmund, Austria, in 1948, during the company's brief hegira from Stuttgart) -- and the latest generation of the 911 sports coupe, the 2009 Carrera and Carrera S.
The chance to drive 001 came courtesy of Klaus Bischof, the manager of Porsche's museum, whom I met at Pebble Beach this month. According to Bischof, I was only the fifth person to drive the car since it was returned to the company in the 1950s. After my drive, he said, the car was going to be put on a plane and installed in a central position in the company's new museum, opening in December in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen.
And so, a rare chance to time-travel into automotive history. I was interested to know if some thread of the Gmund gene sequence -- some tactility, some aesthetic, some essence -- has survived the endless replications, the improvements and technical evolution of the intervening 60 years.
The company has the DNA of founder Ferdinand Porsche running through the board room -- his descendants control significant portions of Porsche and VW Group. But is there Porsche DNA in the cars?
