Business Notes AUTOS

Workers at West Germany's Porsche will get an unusually long Christmas break this year. The plants that produce the prestige sports car will not reopen until Jan. 22, and even then production will be cut back by two-thirds. The slowdown is the result of Porsche's overreliance on the American market, which absorbed about 60% of the company's production in 1986. But 1987 sales slowed to a crawl because of the stock-market crash and the decline of the dollar against the West German mark.

The chief executive who spearheaded the company's American marketing drive, Peter Schutz, 57, has been pushed out of the firm by the Porsche family. His replacement, former Deputy Chairman Heinz Branitzki, 58, is expected to maintain the new austerity until Porsche gets back on the fast track.