"Our business model is only financed by customers. So we have to pay a lot of attention to our customers. When the customer is happy then the worker is happy too and so are the suppliers. Then there should be enough money left for the shareholder. But that is the order of importance," he says.

All of this is part of Mr Wiedeking's insistence that he is not a slave to the capital markets: "The question is: how can society allow capital to make all the rules? I have never understood shareholder value as it leaves so many things out. Shareholders give their money just once, whereas the employees work every day."

Of course he can say that since Porsche is more or less owned by two families.