Milestones: Porsche tries to buy VW

At some point, perhaps early 2005, the people at Porsche decided it wasn't enough to run one of the world's most revered and profitable car companies.

They wanted to run one of the biggest. Solution? Buy that company up the road called Volkswagen.

It didn't matter that VW was vastly larger, Porsche chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking set to work. By 2006 he had 25 per cent, by early 2007, 30 per cent.

As his VW share portfolio grew, Wiedeking kept insisting no takeover was planned. He was a white knight, intent on protecting VW from … er, who? People like him?

At least part of the reason was good old family animosity: a longtime rivalry between the grandsons of Ferdinand Porsche, the man who designed the Beetle for Adolf Hitler (yes, that Adolf Hitler).

With Ferdinand Piech running the VW Group, and his cousin Wolfgang Porsche leading the family over at Porsche, a collision course was set with Wiedeking as attack dog - or perhaps as instigator (German newspapers called Wiedeking "filled with hubris" and "intoxicated by his success as boss of Porsche").

But it was more complicated than that, because the Piech family also owned shares in Porsche. It was clear Piech detested Wiedeking, who he could see fatally damaging both sides of his own family's holdings.

Some thought Wiedeking was merely working to pre-empt Piech, who always wanted to bring Porsche and VW under the same roof. He was just doing it from the short end of the seesaw.

During the process, the Porsche company transformed into a trading house, with Wiedeking drawing the biggest corporate salary in Germany, and Porsche's market speculation profits far exceeding those from cars.

However, all this moolah and more was going into VW shares. And the price of those shares was skyrocketing.

By 2008, Wiedeking had more than 42 per cent of VW in hand and options for another 31.5 per cent.

"Actually, we are going to do a full takeover," he now said, though possibly not in those words. "And that will at last give us the chance to smash the VW piggy bank and use their €8 billion cash-at-hand to pay our huge debts and tax liabilities."

There was just one tiny problem - and several enormous ones.

First, it was now 2008. The world economy had been kneed in the groin by dodgy financiers and banks were frantically pulling in loans. Porsche had lots of them.

VW's powerful unions were arcing up too, fearing cutbacks after a hostile takeover, while sales of Porsche cars and trucks - yes, Wiedeking was responsible for the Cayenne - were wilting as the economy did likewise.

But the biggest miscalculation behind the whole calamity was a legal one. The state of Lower Saxony owned 20.1 per cent of VW, and Germany's so-called Volkswagen Law specifically said no takeover was possible without its consent. It wouldn't consent.

Porsche tried to get the Volkswagen Law revoked, but every moment's delay was adding to the crippling interest charges on borrowings.

While Wiedeking desperately sought wealthy Arabs to hurl funds into his floundering campaign, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made it clear she had no interest in changing a law specifically framed to protect VW from opportunist debt-funded arsehats (though again possibly not in those words). By July 2009, Wiedeking and the Porsche family threw up the white flag.

The epic omnishambolic failure had created a debt mountain of almost €10 billion, though Wiedeking still managed to walk away with a €50 million payout. Worse still, the hunter had become the prey. Instead of nabbing VW, the proudly independent Porsche became merely another wholly owned Wolfsburg brand.