Valentin Schäffer – Porsche’s turbo master

Valentin Schäffer (1978)

Another keen young recruitee to Zuffenhausen in the early 1950s, Valentin Schäffer, would become Porsche’s racing turbo specialist and engineer the induction systems that endowed Porsche sports racers with a dominance that lasted decades.

The compact figure of Valentin Schäffer trotted up the steps of the Porsche Museum with the zest of a man much younger than his eighty-two years, his broad smile suggesting someone who has lost none of his enthusiasm. We had come to Stuttgart to meet this spritely retired engineer, Porsche’s Turbo wizard whose career spans the pre-A to the introduction of water cooling.