Porsche's American Palace Rises on Ford's Rubble - Yahoo Autos (blog)
All photos: AP. About 1,000 of Atlanta’s social set gathered Thursday night at a sleek, angular office and track nestled between a freeway and the end of the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport runways to celebrate the opening of the Porsche... The Porsche center, the largest investment ever made by the automaker outside of Germany, will house 450 employees who handle sales, finance, Porsche’s business consulting arm and other tasks. But instead of just being an office building, Porsche plans to open the center daily to the public and entice current and future Porsche enthusiasts with driving, history and dining. When Porsche started planning its move in 2010, the Ford plant on the site in Atlanta’s Hapeville suburb was already rubble. Built in 1947, the plant at its peak employed 4,200 people, building some of Ford’s most popular cars over the years: Torinos, Rancheros, Fairlanes and Thunderbirds, with production peaking at 128,000 cars a year. For its final two decades, the plant churned out the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, the cars Ford used to re-launch itself in the 1980s. . When Porsche decided to build its new center, it wanted more than an office. Source: www.yahoo.com
