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Winterkorn remains CEO of Volkswagen's majority shareholder

Martin Winterkorn may have stepped down as the chief executive of Volkswagen in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal, but he's not out from under the company's large umbrella just yet. In fact, according to a report from Reuters, he still holds four top-level positions not only within the industrial giant's bureaucracy, but at the top of it. And one of those is as CEO of the company's largest shareholder. That holding company is Porsche SE, the investment arm of the Piech and Porsche families (Ferdinand Porsche's descendants) which holds over 50 percent of VW's shares. In 2008, Porsche SE acquired majority interest in the Volkswagen Group which in turn acquired Porsche the automaker – and placed VW's Winterkorn at the head of the executive board of the holding company. Though Winterkorn has resigned from his position as chairman of VW's management board, he has apparently yet to step down from running Porsche SE. That's not the only job that Winterkorn still retains in VW's senior management. He also continues to serve as chairman of Audi, as well as truck manufacturer Scania, and the new Truck & Bus GmbH into which Scania has been grouped together with Man. It remains unclear if or when Winterkorn might resign from those positions as well, or how his tenure in those posts might affect the company's effort to start over in the aftermath of the scandal in which it is currently embroiled. Also unclear, Reuters reports, is how much, exactly, Winterkorn will receive in compensation after having stepped down from his chair at the head of the VW executive board. His pension is reported at over $30 million, but he could be awarded a large severance package as well amounting to as much as two years' worth of his annual compensation, which amounted to around $18 million last year. Whether he receives the severance pay or not is expected to depend on whether his resignation is considered by the supervisory board to have been the result of his own missteps or independent of the situation that resulted in his resignation. One way or another, he's not likely to go poor anytime soon.

Sunday Drive: Performance comes in many shapes and sizes

The Chevrolet Corvette has always stood out as a bastion of reasonably priced performance, and the latest 'Vette has that in spades. And while its expected starting price of around $120,000 certainly isn't cheap, it's an undeniable deal in the supercar world – remember, this thing'll do 210 miles per hour thanks to its 755-horsepower supercharged V8 engine. And did you get a load of that massive rear wing? Team Corvette's longtime foe, the Porsche 911, is similarly hellbent on ultimate performance. And as a reminder of how long the Corvette/911 rivalry has been melting tires we present the 1990 Porsche 911 as reimagined by Singer you see below. It's beautiful, it's green, and it's packing 500 air-cooled horsepower. You don't have to burn gasoline to go fast, as proven by the second-generation Tesla Roadster, which was revealed as a surprise late last week. Elon Musk says it'll be the quickest car in the world with a 0-60 time of just 1.9 seconds. And while you may not think of a semi truck when you think speed, the Tesla Semi can do 0-60 in 5 seconds flat unloaded, or in 20 seconds with a load of 80,000 pounds. Compared to today's crop of diesel semis, that's amazing. Continuing the truck theme, we present an artists rendering of what the next-generation Ram 1500 pickup may look like. Spoiler alert: Ram's mini-semi look is giving way to something much more modern. There may even be a first-of-its-kind split tailgate at the rear. And if you don't think the Ram 1500 has anything to do with performance, we should remind you that it's one of the cheapest ways to get a tire-shredding Hemi V8 engine in America. 2019 Chevy Corvette ZR1: All hail the 755-horsepower C7 king This is the first Porsche 911 to get Singer and Williams' 500-horsepower engine Tesla Roadster surprise reveal | 'Quickest car in the world' Tesla Semi Truck revealed: Here are the key details This could be the next-generation 2019 Ram 1500 2019 Ram 1500 spotted with split tailgate

Gemballa reveals new Porsche 991-based GT convertible

Gemballa went through the ringer last year, but rebounded with products that signal a complete turnaround. The latest is the recently-released Porsche 911 Carrera S with a Gemballa GT aerodynamics and technology package. Aero-wise, it includes carbon fiber additions beginning with a front bumper wearing the classic Gemballa air intake design and a lower, angrier splitter. New side skirts run from wheel to wheel, the final piece being a rear bumper in three sculpted horizontal sections featuring a rear diffuser tucked between six rectangular exhaust tips.
No engine mods have been made, but the technology part of the tune - springs that are 30 millimeters shorter yet still able to work with the PASM system - is claimed to make the car faster. Bringing things to a halt is a new Brembo brake system hiding behind 21-inch GForged wheels that are lighter than Porsche's standard 20-inchers.
The Gemballa GT aero kit runs €19,860 ($26,070 U.S.), which includes paint and installation if you happen to be in Germany, and we're assuming that includes the suspension modification, brakes and sport exhaust. The GForged wheels are another €9,895 ($12,989 U.S.) depending on your choice of tire. Check out the press release below for more info, and the photo gallery above for all the angles.