PROFILE: MICHAEL MAUER
THE 911 REMAINS AT THE HEART OF PORSCHE, AND ITS DESIGN CHIEF WANTS THE SAME SPIRIT TO INSPIRE EVERYTHING IT DOES, FROM EVS TO SUVS
No, Porsche’s design chief does not have the easiest job in the world...
OUR TOUR GUIDE for the Porsche Museum is Michael Mauer, Porsche’s chief designer. Towards the end of our tour, Mauer is showing us the many cars he was responsible for designing. They include the 991 and 992 versions of the 911, the 918 Spyder, the Macan, the Panamera, and the latest 718-generation Boxster and Cayman. In fact, Mauer is responsible for every new Porsche since he took over as design boss in 2004, replacing Dutchman Harm Lagaay.
Michael Mauer showing us around the Porsche Museum is a bit like Salvador Dalí or Andy Warhol giving us a tour of the Tate Modern, or Caravaggio showing us around the Uffizi. A star showing us his work and those of his peers. Porsche has had only four design directors in its history. The first was Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, eldest son of company founder Ferry and credited with the original 911.
“Change helps to keep an organisation young and fresh, but on the other hand, there is the risk you lose the connection from one car to the next. I believe if you want to build a strong brand identity, you need continuity. I’m happy that while most of the car industry, like the fashion industry, has been trying to make quite radical styling changes quite quickly, we’ve resisted. Sometimes it takes more courage not to do everything that new technology makes possible. I’m very happy Porsche didn’t fall into this trap. We have an anchor in this fast-changing world. I believe there’s no point changing unless it’s to make it better.”
We tour from the very beginning of Porsche’s car-building days – the late 1940s – and Mauer dwells on the 356, Porsche’s first car. “It’s a pure, simple design that took courage and skill. If a car’s surfacing isn’t right and the stance isn’t right that’s when designers add one line, then another and in the end you don’t even know what the car should look like. Many cars fall into that trap today. But the 356 was so right and many of its design elements lasted for the next 50 years.”
We move onto the 550 Spyder (1953), the type of car in which James Dean was killed when he hit Donald Turnupseed’s Ford sedan on Route 466 near Cholame, California. It’s small, light (just 550kg) and mid-engined. Would he like to design a new, smaller, more minimalist sports car – a modern 550 Spyder? “I’d love to do a pure new sports car, reduced to the maximum. We will see. There is a lot of discussion. I think it’s possible, especially with new materials.” He talks about such a car potentially being “mechanical, pure and back to our roots.”
Porsche is still a pure sports car maker at heart, insists Mauer. He makes this point early in our museum tour, perhaps to head off the obvious question before we get to the Cayennes and Macans. Nowadays, 65 percent of Porsches built are SUVs. The Macan and Cayenne are the brand’s best sellers.
“There’s nothing wrong with a brand growing. But you need a clear design philosophy and, in Porsche’s case, we still need the ‘real’ sports cars that are the core of the company.” He cites the 911 and its endless performance iterations – “no other company manages its derivative strategy so nicely” –
plus the 718 Boxster and Cayman. Great sports cars, all of them.
We move on to the 904 (1964), Porsche’s mid-’60s sports racer, and a Mauer favourite. “Ferdinand Porsche is most famous for the first 911. But this [the 904] was his masterpiece. It also subscribes to the Porsche philosophy that to be more efficient, go smaller and lighter.”
But with chunky Cayennes and 1500kg 911s, is that still Porsche’s philosophy? “Yes it is,” he insists. “With the Panamera and Cayenne, we have to offer luxury and equipment that these customers expect, and that adds weight. Lightweight is still our focus. Moving forward, with battery-electric cars, reducing weight will become even more important.”
We come to the first 911 (1963), which nowadays looks almost impossibly small and dainty. “A step forward on the 356 and you can see the connection: the side window shape, upright screen, simple and taut surface treatment, high front fenders… a very modern car but with a clear connection to the 356 and this is how they started to build the brand identity. That was very far-sighted, especially for a young company. They could have tried to do something all-new with the 911 but they didn’t make that mistake. They only got it wrong once – the 928 [1978].”
Ah, the 928! One of the great luxury GTs, and Porsche’s first all-new sports car (even the 356 had Beetle genes). And a big marketing mistake. “The 928 was supposed to replace the 911 [whose sales dipped in the mid-’70s]. Then some clever person realised that was not the right strategy.”
But what a car! “Yes, incredibly brave. Integrated bumpers, that soft nose,