This video has just gone live on Youtube, showing a prototype Porsche 918 exiting an underground car park in Stuttgart.
This car – SM 2252 – features in a lot of Youtube spy stuff, as it runs around doing errands. I doubt the development engineer expected a stalker, but it’s interesting to see the car go about its business on normal roads and pavements.
Despite the production run well under way, PT1018 is a prototype (P/T). Our tipster points to Carrera GT roof and handles, 991 rear lights, static rear wing and a host of 918 trim that’s gone AWOL. The Corsa alongside is a minor distraction, but the electric steering, silent pull-away and throaty exit give us mere mortals a bit of a thrill.
We’ll all be excited to see our first 918 in the flesh. I hope one of these test beds is kept for the Porsche Museum.
We have just seen the record figures for Porsche sales 2013. The unsurprising news came as the UK announced the best year for car sales since 2007, and BMW subsidiary, Rolls-Royce, also posted record sales for the fourth year in a row.
Rolls-Royce delivered 3,630 cars to customers in 2013. Fastest growing markets were the Middle East (up 17%) and China (up 11%). Rolls’ CEO intriguingly told reporters that the company was looking at new designs, including a potential 4×4 model.
In comparison, the volume-oriented Porsche brand saw stronger growth through 2013. Total Porsche deliveries for 2013 was 162,415: a 15% increase on the 2012 total. Sales in Asia and the Middle East rose over 20%, with China close behind.
The USA remains Porsche’s biggest single market, with 42,000 cars delivered in 2013: 20% up on last year. China’s 37,000 sales can be heard snapping at America’s heels. Sales to the Red Star must be set to overtake the US this year, assuming unrestricted supply.
Biggest Porsche seller is still the Cayenne, clocking up half of Porsche’s total production, with 82,000 cars sold. Zero surprise when you know how good this car is at everything.
The challenge for a 4wd Rolls Royce is delivering something capable off-road, which still delivers that heavyweight Rolls Royce experience without feeling like a military vehicle. The driving experience is unlikely to match a Cayenne, but it won’t have to do this to sell.
Esteemed friend and colleague, Leonard Stolk from Twinspark Racing, runs a Gen 2 Porsche 997 GT3 as his daily driver. Leonard recently drove its successor at the Amsterdam Porsche dealer and reviewed the Porsche 991 GT3 drive on the Twinspark Racing blog.
“I put the PDK in automatic to see how that would work out. At 100 km/h you do not hear the engine. Boring as hell. If clients test drive this car without manual function engaged, pulling 7-8,000 revs, they will never know how this car differs from the standard Carrera. To enjoy the GT3, you need big revs: the payback comes from a sense of what historic Porsches feel like.
“The 991 GT3 feels even stronger than its already excellent predecessor. The sound experience is even closer to the historic racing engines I’m used to, and that sort of sealed my verdict. The PDK set up is brilliant and I can imagine people liking manual shifting, but to me this is just the next evolution of the mighty 911 and the PDK is progress! I was used to the shift system in a few minutes and wouldn’t hesitate for a second to buy the car as-is.”
Talking to another 997.2 GT3-owning friend in the UK last night, recent discussions with his official Porsche centre suggest 991 GT3s have not sold in droves. While waiting list spaces are said to be rare, he’s still getting sales calls three months after the 991 GT3 launch. OPC bids for his Gen 2 997 GT3 trade-in have risen ten grand since their first offer.
“The OPC guys say that 997 Gen 2 GT3 values have come up as much as £10k since the 991 launch, but then you know what happens at the dealership: they knock an excellent condition car the cost of a front-end respray, a bit of prep including skimming the discs all round, and then want at least six grand margin for resale. When the cost to change from 997 to 991 is £40k or more, who would get out of a low-mileage Gen 2 997 GT3 that does everything perfectly well?”
Just as current owners are staying in their Gen 2 997 GT3s, used buyers who have deferred a Gen 2 997 GT3 purchase, expecting prices to fall with the 991 GT3 launch and who can wait no longer may be the force driving prices upward. Gen 2 997 GT3s retailing at circa half the cost new of a reasonable spec 991 GT3 are reportedly selling well.
UK dealers are having no problem finding buyers for good examples of Gen 2 Porsche 997 GT3 RS: the low-mileage Grey and Red one above with some very nice options recently sold for just over £100k in less than a day. This black Gen 2 997 GT3 Comfort for sale with just 6,700 miles from new is a beautiful car, and seems well priced at £77k including full warranty.
I heard a rumour the other day (via someone I trust to have a clue) that 3,700 991s came into the UK in 2012, but the number imported was less than 1,000 in 2013. No idea how accurate that is – I’ll have a look at the sales figures. All very interesting.
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“There’s little doubt that Porsche’s plan to build 50,000 Macans per year won’t meet demand,” says Kacher. “It may be an SUV, but it’s a proper Porsche in terms of appearance and talent, it blends street cred and desirability with a reasonable price tag and it might just be, for the many rivals in this booming segment, a worst nightmare.”
Car‘s review shows a £47k cost new, but I’m not sure how that’s made up. Basic Macan S is £43k, but when you add 21-inch wheels, mid range leather, DAB with park detect and a pano roof, you’re up to £51k. Would be easy to get this over £60k, so we’ll have to see how the residuals work out for low spec cars versus stuff with toys.
Residuals for petrol v diesel will also be interesting, as Macan Diesel and S are priced the same. In fact, the cars are priced at £41,600, but Porsche adds £169 for third year Porsche Assistance and £800 for the third year of warranty. You can build your own Macan on the very attractive new Porsche website.
Macan’s undeniable sexiness and outright ability will further reduce the number of people who persist in denying Porsche badge credibility to anything with more than two doors, but that will not be its best trick. The truck still weighs 1.9 tonnes and looks relatively spacious inside. Cayenne is not much heavier, or more roomy, so what happens next for Stuttgart’s biggest SUV? Like all the Volkswagen Golfs before it, will it get bigger and bigger and eventually ooze off the scales? Another Porsche first!
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Chris Harris videos continue to evolve and entertain. His latest production (apparently filmed on his own) is this one below on the new Porsche 991 GT3: a world exclusive drive of a development car, somewhere in the hills of southern Europe.
Talking to GT3 owners, some are still cross at the technical upsets: PDK-only, electric power steering and a non-Mezger engine. But many more like this fastest, revviest, most-button Porsche, and covet new-spec trinkets like the centre-lock matt silver wheels and that racecar front airdam.
What most are not liking is the financial pain to take to get it. As a good friend and GT3 owner said the other night: “I paid £70k for my first GT3, £80 for my second one and the latest is getting on for £100,000. Porsche are quoting £30k plus my low-mile Gen 2 GT3 RS to get into a new one, rising to £40k when I add some spec.”
The problem is not the lack of forty grand. It’s the airiness of Stuttgart thinking and pricing, the value (and trust) lost in what is still a satisfying machine to drive and the emerging sense that Porsche will keep jacking up the price, every time there’s a new model. You can’t pin all those price hikes on inflation.
Over on Apple’s product treadmill, owners are increasingly fed up with the latest dangling shiny bit mocking their spend on the last upgrade. An iPhone 5 upgrade costs a small fortune, only to find Apple shoving a must-have ‘S’ upgrade out six months later, costing contract holders similar daft sums to upgrade.
Apple has tackled upgrade apathy with some brains, retaining the camera and overall operating system from 4S to 5, so the upgrade was just to have a bigger phone and slightly faster processor. For people who use their iPhone mainly as camera and web device, a change made little sense, so the faithful can wait for the 5S and a step up in camera technology, and let the fashionistas take the 5 to iron out all the bugs.
In contrast, Porsche’s move from 997 to 991 GT3 threw out all the old stuff and went straight to GT3 5S: a big change in spec with a whacking hike in price. Before today, looking at this car on paper begged the question, “is all this new tech really that great?” Masterful demonstration of the tech at work dismisses any notion that this isn’t an improvement.
The facts and the feedback make this a no-brainer. The video rips the numbers to perfection and Harris is Porsche’s best salesman. There is no reason to avoid this car when he shows you what it can do.
With no access to the car and none of this talent behind the wheel, I must talk philosophy. As Harris puts it, a car with this ability, in this shape and making this noise should be the last bastion of a manual gearbox. But with the GT3 now so well engineered, the downside to a manual would be cockpit confusion when really pressing on: the driver becomes a log jam in the flow of speed from chassis to tarmac, and that is not what GT3 is all about.
Will Porsche build a GT3 5S-S with a manual transmission? Not in the short term. We’re now talking about Porsche past – manual transmission as ultimate go-faster bit is history. As Porsche sees things, if you want a manual box, you’re hankering for old technology in an older car, so just buy an old car.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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