To provide extra production capacity, some units of the new 2013 Porsche Boxster sports car may be assembled by Volkswagen. Volkswagen’s new plant in Osnabrueck, Germany, will provide overflow production capacity from Porsche’s factory in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Such a move had been rumored over a year ago.
The Osnabrueck facility formerly belonged to automotive assembly company Wilhelm Karmann GmbH until it entered bankruptcy in April 2009. Volkswagen took over the plant and began producing the Golf cabriolet at Osnabrueck in May 2011. At the time, VW confirmed that the factory could also provide overflow manufacturing for the new Porsche Boxster and Cayman. The plant’s total annual capacity is about 100,000 vehicles.
A Porsche spokesman in the U.S. confirmed that Osnabrueck will serve only as overflow capacity in the case the Zuffenhausen plant can’t keep up with production demand — for instance, if the main Porsche factory suddenly receives a large number of orders for the 911 sports car. Production at the Volkswagen plant will begin this fall.
Porsche has a history of outsourcing assembly of the Boxster and its hardtop twin, the Cayman. From September 1997 through May 2011, Finnish company Valmet Automotive built 227,890 Porsche models under contract — of which 168,477 were Boxsters and 59,413 were Caymans.
