Billionaire chairman of Porsche wants to build a 500-meter underground tunnel connecting to his historic villa

Wolfgang Porsche, the grandson of Porsche’s founder Ferdinand, came up with an incredible idea for the Zweig Villa in Austria.

Wolfgang wants to build an underground tunnel that leads to Stefan Zweig Villa, one of many properties owned by his company, from the center of Salzburg.

The idea would cost billions, and it has already enraged the locals.

The irony is that this isn’t even his main residence.

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Why Porsche wants to build this tunnel

Even though the company gravitates around the Volkswagen Group, the Porsche family still exerts a significant pull.

They collectively own around 12 percent of the company, which is more than enough to make sure their opinions and views are taken into account during board meetings.

Wolfgang Porsche himself is a member of the board, and the Chairman, not to the mention the fact he’s a direct descendant to the company’s founder.

Now he is focusing on a ‘side quest’ after coming up with a plan to build an underground tunnel that leads to the Zweig Villa in Salzburg.

Porsche’s main personal residence is in Zell am See, also in Austria, but the villa in Salzburg is a big deal for Wolfgang personally as well as for Porsche.

The company bought it in 2020, and the villa is being renovated as we speak.

The tunnel project would create an underground passage from the Linzergasse parking garage to the villa, with a footpath tunnel for the final approach.

The council has already granted preliminary approval, but the locals aren’t too happy.

This sounds like the start of a juicy battle, so stay tuned.

The VW Group is like a hall of mirrors

It would probably take a few PhDs to correctly explain the structure of Volkswagen.

Volkswagen Group owns 75 percent of Porsche, which in turn owns 45 percent of Rimac, which owns Bugatti, but is also owned, in part, by Hyundai.

How’s that for a start?

Volkswagen also controls Audi, Ducati, Lamborghini, Seat, Cupra, Škoda and, some people may not know this, the company also holds a 4.99 percent stake in Xpeng, the Chinese automaker that’s building flying cars as well as autonomous cars.