Today was the day for our car delivery at the customer centre of Porschewerk Leipzig.

The shuttle pick-up from the Steigenberger Hotel next door delivered us to Porsche at 8:30am where after a short pause for coffee we were told the first order of business was to head out on their FIA certified track in one of their cars. Our instructor David was wide awake and ready to go. After a couple of laps to show us the lines and corners we both had a turn to take several laps of the circuit at racing speed. His words of encouragement for the straight away “just floor it it’s perfectly safe”,  not withstanding the 90 degree corner at the end of the straight!

No damage done to cars or egos.

Next up was to go and visit with the car.

Cayman S – GT Silver Metallic

After a small break to gather our wits again we headed off to tour the Leipzig factory where the four door Porsche vehicles are assembled, this includes the Panamera, Macan and Cayenne. The factory is humming and our guide informed us that from the original work force of 300 when the operation opened in 2003 the complement is now up to 6,000 working three shifts to produce 650 vehicles a day on a flexible manufacturing line.

An amazing sight to see the various large components moving by overhead and on automatic floor transporters as the body unit and the drive components come together. The body drops from above and the drive unit rises from below at the “marriage” station where they are joined together and move to the final assembly process. Unfortunately no photos are allowed in this area, however there are a number of Porsche sanctioned videos on U-Tube if anyone is interested.

Next it was on to a gourmet lunch in the restaurant area at the top of the building followed by the chance to review the small collection of cars on the upper floor.

Canadians everywhere – our lunch table companions were from Montreal.

Be careful where you park someone may section your car while you are at lunch!

More details at:

https://www.porsche-leipzig.com/en/home/

After lunch it was time to punch in the downtown parking garage on the nav system and brave the traffic on real roads then dodge the downtown hordes driving across the pedestrian zone to get to the parking. We only went the wrong way down two one way streets in the town centre before we decided to ignore the nav system for the last few metres of the journey.  At the parking lot in the hotel across the street the only spot was between two very large and somewhat scarred concrete pillars – we successfully reversed in.

A great day and a great customer experience.

One more day in Leipzig and then on to Austria.