The Demo Site

No Porsches allowed: While Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking is scrambling to find Middle East investors to prevent being taken over by Volkswagen—which would be a reversal of his original plan to acquire the Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker—VW CEO Martin Winterkorn and Ferdinand Piëch, head of VW's supervisory board, basked among 200,000 aficionados at the annual Wörthersee GTI event in Reifnitz, Austria.

Originally shunned by VW as a proletarian gathering of tuning freaks, over time the event has attracted enough media attention and market value that VW and Audi have repeatedly brought in dedicated concept cars. And while Piëch and Winterkorn remain tight-lipped about any new development with Porsche, they feel right at home talking styling and horsepower on the shores of the Carinthian lake.

All Show and No (Added) Go

This year, VW brought two concept cars—one based on the MkVI Golf GTI and the other on the new 2009 Polo. Dubbed "Wörthersee 09" editions, they are only cosmetic exercises and are in stark contrast to the 641-hp W-12–powered GTI concept that the company built for the 2007 gathering.