Ulrich Bez

Ulrich Bez was board member for Engineering during the most tumultuous period in Porsche’s history. His lasting achievement is the 993, as Total 911 explores…

Total 911 looks back at the impact of ‘Mr 993’ on the Porsche 911’s story

This was in fact Bez’s fourth and final stint at Porsche: on leaving school he had been an engineering apprentice at Zuffenhausen, grinding valves and helping with the restoration of the 804, Porsche’s F1 car. At university he began an engineering degree, but graduated in aeronautical studies some six years later. Returning to his native Bad Cannstatt on the east side of Stuttgart, Bez applied to Porsche for a placement to carry out the practical part of his thesis. After six months Porsche’s research department offered him a permanent position and he settled into a ten-year stint at Weissach. He learned about bodywork and driving dynamics, managed projects on accident research and published papers which enabled him to complete his PHD under the tutelage of Hans Hermann Braess, Porsche’s then R&D head.

In the best Porsche tradition, there was also plenty of practical motorsport involvement and as the latest recruit he had the task of operating the valve on the fuel tank in the pits for the Nürburgring 1,000km. Flow was achieved by gravity, which meant Bez was billeted on the pit roof with the tanks. Pit signals at Le Mans also fell to him and gave him the chance to admire the organisational skills of team manager and senior car tester Peter Falk; from Falk, Bez would also learn much about feel for driving a car, how it should brake and how it should shift and corner.

Braess moved on to BMW; his replacement Helmut Flegl, though Bez’s contemporary, had joined Porsche some years earlier and had managed Porsche’s Can-am campaign. Flegl was well thought of at Weissach and the ambitious Bez realised this blocked his own advancement. A young man in a hurry, at 29 he decided to follow Braess to BMW.

After a couple of years at Munich the company gave him the break he sought, a DM 10m budget to run a blue-sky research operation, BMW Technik. Amongst the talented recruitees Bez brought to Technik was a Dutch stylist called Harm Lagaaij, who had also begun his career at Weissach at the same time as Bez, before moving to Ford. Their new operation developed a V8 engine to replace BMW’S traditional six to compete with the Mercedes S class, and came up with the innovative sliding-door Z1, precursor of BMW’S Z series and a car which generated much publicity.

Meanwhile the collapse of the dollar in the mid1980s was steadily eroding Porsche’s profitability: saddled with ever-higher costs and an increasingly dated model range, the company was losing ground. Feelers were put out to Bez as early as May 1988 to see whether he was interested in returning to Stuttgart as engineering director, a board-level appointment. In September long-serving Helmuth Bott, who had directed Porsche engineering since 1972, resigned and Bez took up his new position within a month. He knew it would be a challenge