Porsche lifts its stake in Manthey Racing to 67 per cent under new Home of Sports Cars banner

Stake increased to 67 per cent

Porsche announced on 8 October that Dr Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG has increased its stake in Manthey Racing GmbH to 67 per cent. The company said the move is intended to strengthen its business with high-performance vehicles as part of its Sportwagenschmiede '35 strategy and its newly created Home of Sports Cars concept. The corporate announcement was also distributed as a German-language EQS news release on 8 October, carried by aktiencheck.de, confirming the same 67 per cent figure and strategic framing. ¹²⁵

Alongside the ownership change, Porsche said it intends to expand its collaboration with Manthey across special models in the few-off segment, performance kits and exclusive racetrack experiences. The announcement did not detail further operational changes flowing from the larger shareholding. ¹²

Home of Sports Cars bundles Performance, Exclusiveness and Heritage

Under the Home of Sports Cars umbrella, Porsche will bundle its activities across three areas: Performance, which includes Manthey; Exclusiveness, covering the Sonderwunsch and Exclusive Manufaktur programmes; and Heritage. Porsche said the established individualisation offering sits at the pinnacle of this structure and is to be scaled up further. ¹²⁵

The stake increase was foreshadowed a day earlier at Porsche's Capital Markets Day at the Weissach Development Centre, where the company unveiled its Sportwagenschmiede '35 strategy. In the strategy presentation, Porsche stated it was strengthening its Performance business by increasing its stake in Manthey Racing GmbH to 67 per cent, deepening the collaboration with the specialists based near the Nürburgring and expanding the joint offering from performance kits and track experiences through to complete vehicle concepts in the few-off segment. ³⁴

The broader strategy context is significant: Porsche is planning a significant expansion of its individualisation range, aims to increase sales from its Sonderwunsch business sixfold in the medium term, and intends to lift the average selling price of its top-of-the-range models by about 20 per cent in the medium term, according to the company's own strategy statements. ³⁴

What Manthey brings to the partnership

Porsche described Manthey as combining 30 years of GT expertise with a proven motorsport record, including seven overall victories at the Nürburgring 24-hour race, six class wins at Le Mans, and several FIA WEC titles and DTM championships. By increasing its stake, Porsche said it intends to deepen the collaboration and expand its presence in the performance segment for both racetrack and road, beyond its own GT models. ¹²⁵

The commercial partnership already has a substantial product record. Since 2020, Porsche and Manthey have developed nine joint Manthey Kits, ranging from the 911 and the 718 through to the latest Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package, according to the Porsche announcement. ¹²

Manthey leadership responds

Porsche chief executive Dr Michael Leiters said Manthey had been a trusted Porsche partner for many years, firmly rooted in the motorsport community with a loyal customer base, and that the company intended to build on this. He added that by increasing its stake Porsche was moving even closer to the brand, which is based near the Nürburgring and extremely successful in customer racing, with the aim of expanding the joint offering to special models in the few-off segment, performance kits and exclusive racetrack experiences. ¹²⁵

Nicolas Raeder, Managing Director of Manthey Racing GmbH, said mutual trust had been the foundation of the collaboration, with numerous projects realised over the past 13 years, and that the shareholding increase was seen as a personal mark of appreciation. His brother and joint managing director Martin Raeder said the company was heading into the future in a stronger position with the new shareholding, describing it as the next step in the partnership and saying closer cooperation would allow existing synergies and potential to be used more deliberately to strengthen the bridge between motorsport and production vehicles. ¹²⁵

First preview at the DTM finale

A first preview of future joint projects is scheduled for Friday 9 October, when Manthey will present two special models to mark the company's 30th anniversary as part of the DTM meeting at the Hockenheimring, from 13:30 CEST, according to the Porsche announcement. Details of those models were not included in the announcement. ¹²⁵

The Hockenheimring event doubles as the DTM season finale, where Manthey is contesting its third championship in four years. The company said Thomas Preining leads the drivers' standings with a 23-point advantage, while Manthey leads the teams' standings by 20 points, with qualifying sessions on Saturday and Sunday at 09:35, Saturday's race at 13:30 and the final race of the season on Sunday at 16:30. ¹²⁵