Snapping up Volkswagen could be the smartest move in the car business.

The auto industry generates nothing these days that even remotely resembles good news. General Motors is teetering on the edge of official (as opposed to undeclared) bankruptcy. Chrysler is apparently being run by the Italians. The Detroit car business itself is conducting a dog and pony show for Washington's auto task force against a background of Motown homes selling for a buck (which is just slightly less than Ford's current share price). Even former stalwart profit machines like Toyota and BMW are struggling with declining sales and collapsed leasing offers.

Of course, no matter how bad the industry gets, there's always shelter in the storm, a shining light in the midst of the malignant gloom: the coolest car company in the world, Porsche.

The brand—for which, as it was famously phrased in Risky Business, "there is no substitute"—has just about everything going for it, even as the wider world of personal mobility crumbles. Its owner base is passionate and devoted, and the automotive press renders routine and justified fealty. Due to its compact portfolio of four vehicles, all engineered according to the unimpeachable values of high performance, Porsche is seemingly impervious to downturns. Its competitive racing DNA is stupendous. And finally Crown Prince of Cool Steve McQueen drove a Porsche (several, actually) in that great, Zenlike cinematic tribute to the marque, Le Mans.

Unlike historic rival Ferrari, there's nothing trashy, exotic, or flamboyant about Porsche. The cornerstone of its reputation is the 911, the distinctive, minimalistic, rear-engined sports coupe that the company introduced in 1964 and has steadily refined ever since. It's as close to a thoroughbred as you can buy, right now for around $70,000. That's obviously luxury territory, but no one really thinks of the 911 as a luxury car. The whole point is that you could capriciously decide to take an offramp to the racetrack and switch from negotiating workaday traffic at the legal speed limit to turning laps at 180 mph.

Even an at-the-time questionable foray into the SUV market with the Cayenne in 2003 couldn't damage Porsche cred. Just as Porsche had built the best sports car money could buy, so did Porsche build the finest performance SUV on the road—in fact, Porsche transformed the very idea of a "performance SUV" into something that wasn't a jeer-worthy oxymoron. Appearing this year will be Porsche's first-ever sedan, the Panamera. A bold evolution, it will probably be jaw-dropping and make the BMW 7-Series seem like a Chevy Malibu.

Why, then, have some industry observers questioned the sustainability of Porsche's business model? And why, for the past few years, has Porsche, the small German carmaker that makes perfect cars, been buying up chunks of Volkswagen, the large German carmaker that produces a mixed bag of rides both good and bad?