Leading sports car manufacturer Porsche recently celebrated the production of its 500,000th vehicle, a white Cayenne with a V8 engine, at its plant in Leipzig, Germany.

The anniversary sports car Cayenne was converted into a command vehicle for the Leipzig fire brigade with the assistance of Porsche’s apprentices.

At a grand ceremony held at its Leipzig plant, Matthias Müller, the president and CEO of Porsche, handed over the car keys to the Lord Mayor of the City, Burkhard Jung as a token of the affiliation with Porsche’s Leipzig home.

“Half a million vehicles in only ten years is a remarkable result for a luxury car manufacturer like Porsche. Behind the success is a strong workforce now numbering 1,005 employees at our production facility in Saxony,' said a proud Müller in his speech to the high-ranking guests.

'I am impressed by the high degree of technical expertise of our Leipzig colleagues. They send forth into the world the seal of quality ‘Made in Germany’ and with it a piece of Leipzig,' he added.

Lord Mayor Burkhard Jung emphasised the importance to the city’s development of Porsche having set up shop there.

'Half a million cars made in Leipzig is powerful evidence of Porsche’s ability as a company to perform in the industrial location that is Leipzig. The world’s most prestigious sports car manufacturer has put its faith in this city and written a success story. I look forward to the new, even larger Porsche plant,' he stated.

Leipzig is on course for growth: “Never have we produced as many cars as we do today, and we are expanding our production for an entirely new model line as well,” Siegfried Bülow, the chairman of the executive board of Porsche Leipzig, said, indicating a start of production date for the Macan at the end of 2013.

'To that end, Porsche is developing the production facility into a fully-fledged plant with its own body assembly line and paint shop, investing more than 500 million euro and creating approximately 1,000 additional jobs in the medium term,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service