A review of Porsche: Excellence Was Expected in 911 & Porsche World - March 2009

Karl Ludvigsen"s masterpiece - Excellence Was Expected - is a never-ending story. Why? Well, just as Porsche will keep on rolling and producing even better and more fascinating machinery, then Ludvigsen"s massive three-volume tome will be following fast behind.

First published in 1977 as a single volume, this is the latest update since 2003. If you"re thinking that surely there can"t be that much more to cover, then consider that, since then, Porsche has launched the 997, the Cayman, the revised Boxster, the RS Spyder, the 997-based GT racers and the Panamera, plus revised Cayenne direct-injection engines and PDK gearboxes. Oh, and of course there are final incarnations of the 996 and a further updated chapter on the Carrera GT. That"s more than enough to justify the 257 new or revised pages and five new chapters that take the total page count up to 1688 pages over the three volumes.

Of course, there"s more to Porsche than just the cars, and Ludvigsen recognises this perfectly as he documents the manufacturer"s extraordinary rise to power and profitability in the first decade of the 21st century, looking at Wendelin Wiedeking"s financially savvy stewardship and related topics such as Porsche"s bid to take over VW.

Where the book really scores, though, is Ludvigsen"s ability to coax the full story out of those involved in the myriad of Porsche"s production and race cars over the years. Often as not that"s perhaps not too difficult, as Porsche"s engineers and designers are proud of their achievements - and rightly so. However, there are always the less than successful models and ventures, and it"s those stories that are often the most interesting, backed up by the benefit of hindsight and a willingness to tell it how it is - and there are always great nuggets of information tha you just never knew.

It may appear expensive, but the reality is that, compared to the years of exhaustive effort that have gone into this amazing book, it"s a complete bargain. No Porsche fan should be without it.

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