The purists and naysayers were wrong about Porsche AG. They sniffed at the impurity of a famous sports car company with a pompous history moving into the sport-efficacy and high-performance four-door car business, and they were wrong.

No wonder Porsche is building money again. Operating profit increased to more than $525-million. Revenue for the first three months was up 80 per cent to more than $2.5-billion. The order bank is full, also, which suggests a good 2011 for the Volkswagen Group’s latest brand. In recent times Porsche may have suffered enormous losses and utter humiliation resulting from an aborted attempt to take over the much larger VW AG. But that is all in the past, says Matthias Mueller, Porsche’s new CEO.