Thousands of Porsche employees are to receive a €6,000 (US$ 8,750) bonus due to the company’s exceptional economic performance for the recently-concluded business year 2007/2008 that ended in July 31. The bonus that comes a year after a similar payment of €5,200 was made for the 2007 fiscal year will be given to each full-time employee who joined the firm prior to August 1, 2007. According to Porsche, €3,800 of this year’s bonus relates to the operative result, €700 is from financial transactions and €1,500 is in honor of Porsche’s 60th brithday. What kind of bonus are you getting this year?

The second generation Porsche Boxster that’s due sometime in 2011 will feature a new base model equipped with a fuel efficient four-cylinder engine according to a report from UK’s Autocar magazine citing company insiders. The last 4-cylinder Porsche was the 1990s 968 which was the final model in an evolving line that started in the mid-1970s with the introduction of the 924 and continued with the 944. But unlike the 968 that was equipped with one of the largest four bangers ever to be offered in a production car with a displacement of 3.0-liters, the next-generation Boxster’s straight-four is expected to be quite smaller, featuring a displacement of 2.0 to 2.4-liters.

At a time when most automakers are struggling with a sharp downturn, making a €8.586 billion profit (before taxes) in the fiscal year 2007/2008 that ended on July 31 definitely comes to a surprise - especially when we’re talking about a company of the size of Porsche. The prior-year figure had been €5.857bn meaning that Porsche’s net profit jumped a whopping 46%. But what’s even more startling is the fact that the German automaker reported that from the €8.586bn it earned in the 2007/2008 fiscal year, less than €1bn was attributable to operating profits from its car division. So where did the €7.8bn come from?