Peter Sontag, your Treffen®- and Festmeister has been conducting PORSCHE trips for PCA members, their families and friends for 35 years! The 2009 the Fall Budget Treffen was the 81st PORSCHE trip I have organized! In total, there have been over 3,000 Porsche Trip participants who have enjoyed Europe in a way they could not have done on their own. As a result of the trips at least 500 PORSCHES (roughly $35 million worth) have been sold over the years.

A trip to Stuttgart and/or Leipzig is a must for any PORSCHE enthusiast. Not only do you experience the amazing design, workmanship and history of PORSCHE but you actually are driving a PORSCHE of your choice on the AUTOBHAN, fabulous mountain roads and scenic villages unmatched anywhere else in the world.

To fully understand the quality, ambience and fun that trip participants enjoy you need only read the feedback I get after each trip, such as the 2009 Feedback. Everyone has been gracious, fabulous and loads of fun. I currently drive a 1996 993 Cabriolet and recently sold my 1992 928 GTS which I had actually kept in Germany. I have owned 32 Porsches over the years (they were a ‘64 356, two ‘71 914s, an ‘83 944, an ‘86 930 Turbo, six 928s and the rest were 911s). I am planning to get a PORSCHE Panamera – read the article I wrote “3,600 Miles in a 2010 PORSCHE Panamera Turbo” based on my experience in 2009.

I sold my second Boss Hoss motorcycle (it was 2000 model weighing 1,600 lbs. with an 8225 cc - 502 cubic inch, 510 hp, Chevy V-8 Big Block) and bought my third Boss Hoss (pictured on the left) – it has a patriotic US Flag & Eagle motif on it. It is a 2002 model with a modest 5700 cc - 355 cubic inch Chevrolet Corvette ZZ4 V-8; 0 – 60 mph alleged at 1.8 seconds (I have never tried it); top speed = unknown! (I have never tried that either).

In my “real life,” I sold my travel company, USTravel, Inc., which I built from scratch in 1994. At that time, it was the third largest travel distributor in the U.S. with sales of $2.4 billion and 540 offices in the U.S. plus 400 franchisees. After that, I was Chairman and part-owner of one of the largest distributors of hotel rooms in the country (we sold 28.5 million room nights a year), which I successfully sold to trip.com.

I am currently serving on 3 corporate boards and I am involved in two new ventures. I served on the board of a major airline for 14 years and was on the committee to successfully sell it in 2007. Business Travel News Magazine honored me this spring, along with a few other industry leaders as having been elected four or more times as one of the 25 most influential executives in the travel and transportation industry.

I am very proud of my daughters Alicia (MBA Harvard ’01) who is the chief strategist for a cosmetic company, Bobbi Brown, divisions of Esteé Lauder, and Julie (BS Cornell ’99), who, along with her husband David, just completed a one-year stint at Americorps in San Diego.

I enjoy skiing in Steamboat Springs every year, sailing, Porsches, motorcycles, and all the friends I have made over the many years on the Porsche trips. As custom dictates, at least once every year during our vacation in Steamboat Springs “the Austrian” is on the slopes in his traditional Lederhosen. I know it’s silly but you’d be amazed how many people want their picture taken with me as I’m schussing down the slopes.

Yes, I am Austrian by birth and a naturalized U.S. Citizen – consequently, I speak German fluently (which is absolutely essential in putting these trips together). Ah, yes – right is a proud dad dancing with his daughter, Alicia, in Vienna on February 19th 2009 enjoying the Opera Ball along with Dave Hatch, our host, and another half dozen friends. It was spectacular!

To really understand at least one aspect of my trips is to reach back to the quote of one of the participants of the 2008 Spring Treffen trip who exclaimed after a nice run on the A-7 Autobahn South:

"You haven’t lived until you have passed a German Highway Patrol Car and you’re doing 150 mph, sucking off his hubcaps as you whoosh past, and he just smiles and gives you the thumbs up.”  

Come join me on one of the fabulous trips
and auf Wiedersehen in Stuttgart!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
— George Carlin (1937-2008)

"Porsche," the Porsche Crest, "Carrera," "Targa," "Boxster," "Cayenne," "Cayman," "Panamera," and the distinctive shapes of the Porsche models are trademarks of Porsche AG. Permission Granted.