The entire staff at Beverly Hills Porsche wish Prof. F.A. Porsche a very happy 75th birthday! Professor Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, Honorary Chair of the Supervisory Board of Dr. Ing. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, celebrated his 75th birthday on 11 December 2010. As a designer of true genius, F.A. Ferdinand Alexander Porsche was born on 11 December 1935 in Stuttgart, the eldest son of Dorothea and Ferry Porsche. As a child his world was already being influenced by automobiles, with him spending a lot of time in the design offices and development workshops of his grandfather Ferdinand Porsche. In 1943 the family, together with the company of Porsche, relocated to Austria, where he went to school in Zell am See. After returning to Stuttgart in 1950, he passed the final school examination, the 鈥淎bitur鈥? at the Waldorf School, and registered at the College of Design in Ulm. In 1958 F.A. Porsche joined the design department of what was at that time Dr. Ing. His talent for design very soon became apparent when, with the Type 754 鈥淭7鈥? he formally presented to the world the direction which was to be followed in the succession to the 356 Series.
In 1962 he took charge of the management of the Porsche Design Studio, and one year later took the world by storm with the Porsche 901 (also referred to as the 911). As well as passenger cars, F.A. With the conversion of Porsche KG into a share company in 1971/72, F.A. Porsche and all the other family members stepped aside from the operational business of the company. As a shareholder and member of the Supervisory Board, he oversaw the development of Dr. Ing. F. Porsche AG for many years, and from 1990 to 1993 he served as the Chair of the Supervisory Board. In 2005 he passed the mantle of responsibility as a Porsche AG Supervisory Board member to his son Oliver, and took on the position of Honorary Chair of the Board. In autumn 2003 F.A. Porsche and the other shareholders of 鈥淧orsche Design鈥? together with Dr. Ing. F. Porsche AG, founded the Porsche Lizenz- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG (PLH, Porsche Licence and Trading Company). The aim of this company is to make best use of the potential of the name Porsche in sectors which go beyond the automobile. The focus here is on the trademark 鈥淧orsche Design鈥? which in recent years has developed to become one of the world鈥檚 leading brand names in luxury articles, with its own marketing network. Beverly Hills Porsche sells more cars in California than ANY Porsche dealer. Beverly Hills Porsche is an authorized factory dealership of Porsche cars, SUVs, accessories, parts and merchandise. Centrally located to all of Los Angeles, we aim to be a complete lifestyle destination for all Porsche owners and fans!
鈥楽ir William鈥檚 statement has put up the men鈥檚 backs. It seems it is always the workers who are to blame for everything. The longest strike in the history of Jaguar cars ended on 5th September after ten weeks and four days. It cost the company some 拢21m worth of cars and ruined the launch of the XJ12. Each of the 2000 strikers was estimated to have lost between 拢300 and 拢400 in wages. Many of the strikers complained that they rarely worked a full week as they were often sent home early due to a shortage of components from the ex-Daimler Radford factory and external suppliers. The settlement of the dispute led to the introduction of measured day work at Browns Lane and production of the XJ12 went full steam ahead to meet demand. Denis Jenkinson borrowed an XJ12 and was able to compare it to the E-type. 鈥楾his was in the autumn of 1972 and it proved to be a giant of a car, with road holding and handling up to using the full potential of the V12 engine.
On 6 September 1973, Geoffrey Robinson, who had been out in Italy running British Leyland鈥檚 Innocenti operation, was appointed Jaguar Managing Director working alongside Lofty England. Later in the month, a strike at power steering supplier Adwest brought the production lines to a halt, and in October the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur war broke out. In protest at the West鈥檚 support for Israel the OPEC nations cut back oil production and raised prices with a cataclysmic effect on the world economy. In the same month, the Jaguar E-type FHC ceased production, the reason being that from 1974 all coupes sold in the USA had to be fitted with an internal roll-over bar. Jaguar then boosted roadster production. For parent company British Leyland, 1973 was a dreadful year in which it was plagued by strikes which prevented it from exploiting an expanding car market. On New Year鈥檚 Day 1974, the three day week came into force lasting until March. The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom by the Conservative Government 1970-1974 to conserve electricity, the production of which was severely limited due to industrial action by coal miners.
The effect was that commercial users of electricity would be limited to three specified consecutive days鈥?consumption each week and prohibited from working longer hours on those days. Analysing the E-type production figures, it appears during the three-day week Jaguar managed to produce around 730 cars despite the restrictions, suggesting the implications of the steep oil price rises had not hit home. Lofty England retired from Jaguar at the end of January 1974, citing friction with Lord Stokes nominee Geoffrey Robinson, who replaced him as chairman. As for the E-type, time was running out. All cars exported to the USA from 1974 had to have ungainly rubber bumper over riders which added weight and further distorted the cars appearance. To be fair to Jaguar, many pundits felt that the energy crisis would not affect Jaguar because of the pre-energy crisis waiting list for their cars, but quite clearly it had. The final E-type, registered HDU 555N was retained by Jaguar Cars, the last of 72,233 cars. At least two Series 3 E-types were fitted with a five speed gearbox designed by Trevor Commins, working under Harry Mundy. The E-type left an enduring legacy which enabled people to forget its faults. In September 1975 the Jaguar XJ-S was launched.
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