The Porsche 928, known to some as "Germany's Corvette," has more in common with the Corvette Sting Ray than you may have realized.
Over its lifetime, the Porsche 928 was referred to as "Germany's Corvette," and for good reason. Like the Corvette, the 928 was a V8-powered, front-engine, rear-drive coupes designed to cover long distances at high speeds. The two cars don't have much else in common, except for one man: Tony Lapine.
Latvian designer Anatole "Tony" Lapine started his career at GM in 1951, in the height of the Bill Mitchell years.While at General Motors, he often paired with designer Larry Shinoda and thus served as a designer for the 1963 Corvette, the CERV I and CERV II mid-engine Corvette prototypes, and the Corvair Monza GT and Corvair Monza SS show cars.
GM transferred Lapine in 1965 to head Opel’s Research Center in Germany, a position he held until Porsche recruited him away four years later to become their chief designer. While at Porsche, he oversaw Wolfgang Möbius’s design of the 928, the company’s front-engine, water-cooled V-8 GT that debuted in 1978, along with the designs of the Harm Lagaay-styled 924 and 944 and of the G-series 1974-1977 911. He remained Porsche’s chief designer until 1988.
Sadly he passed away in 2012