Porsche, like every other large-scale manufacturer, uses a lot of robots to build its cars. But it didn’t always used to be that way. For the majority of its existence, Porsche hand-built its machines the old-fashioned way. Let this homemade video from an American visiting Germany in 1986 give you a look inside how Porsche built the 911 and the 928 nearly 40 years ago.
This video, published to YouTube back in 2022, comes from user tasturbo86, who bought a 911 Turbo new back in the day and chose the European delivery option. That means they got to fly to Germany to see their car for the first time, and take a complimentary tour of Porsche’s facilities. And we get to tag along.
The video is nearly 20 minutes of insider footage showing the personnel-heavy production process, from building flat-six and V8 engines to body assembly, dyno testing, and more. It’s a fascinating look at how Porsche put together its cars using mostly people, not machines.
This process carried through to the 993-generation 911 in the late Nineties. While having a hand-made car made for a good selling point at dealerships, the high costs associated with this production method contributed to the company’s brush with bankruptcy during that time. In the switch to the 996-generation 911 and cars like the Boxster and Cayenne, more machines were used, driving costs down.
