Peter Schutz did not have a particularly easy and stable life in fact his life was a story in which he always had to swim against the current. Born into a Jewish family in the Berlin of the thirties, he left his native land to escape the Nazis in
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the direction of Cuba. And from there he left for Chicago with the desire to graduate in mechanical engineering. One of his first jobs he had recently graduated was at Caterpillar. Place where he not only showed that he had talent, but also a lot of courage in saying what he thought. So much so that on his own initiative he skipped the directives of the management giving himself the speech of the company in the most important convention in his sector. He was immediately dismissed. Ferry Porsche, who had proof of Schutz's career, invited him in 1980 to make the most important career decision of his life. Become the CEO of the company. Times were difficult for the brand, for the first time in its history its results accounts showed negative figures, so it was crucial to make drastic decisions. Schutz, who was approved by the board of directors because he knew the American market well enough to overcome the bad sales in that country, remembers perfectly the feeling of sadness that surrounded his team the first day of work. Inquiring into this question, he noticed that the employees watched with fear the decision to cancel forever the production of nothing less than Porsche 911 . The same managers who had elected him as CEO, considered 911 as an old-fashioned and outdated model for market circumstances. Schutz knew that when a German was determined to do something there was practically no going back. Therefore, he only had to do what the heroes do in the movies, get out of the mold. He had only three weeks in the post when in the meeting room in the presence of those who "cut the cod" gave a memorable speech or rather, a memorable gesture. There was a graph that showed the production rate of 944, 928 and 911. If both 928 and 944 had lines that extended over the years, the 911 only reached until 1981. Schutz picked up a pen that was on the desk of the chief engineer, Helmut Bott, and extended the line of the 911 not only reaching the limit of the graph but even reaching the walls and even the door of Professor Bott's office. This last unbeliever remained watching the line, to which Schutz simply asked "do we understand each other?" Bott nodded. And so, in a very determined but simple way, that man who had stained the walls with a marker had just saved 911 from death row. Sadly, Schutz died last year at 87 years old. However, his legacy remains alive, given that Porsche 911 is.
