Porsche 991 Information Released
- Thread starter Tornado
- 1,004 comments
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- 5,806
- Manila, PH
- TakuKanonji22
- 3,577
- Connecticut
- SPhilli
- SPhilli911
Neat. I love Sapphire Blue Metallic.
- 4,763
- Houston, TX
Looks good without the red stripes.
- 8,212
- Drayton Bassett, North Warwickshire
- Duffers999
- Clark Duffy
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
Plausible. I suspect some of the angries are themselves speculators who missed out, though...
I think Porsche itself is to blame for some of it. I can understand the desire to keep certain models exclusive, but limiting production of GT3s, GT4s, Rs and the like to the small quantities it does just fuels the ridiculousness going on in the market right now.
Not sure I buy Porsche's previous claims that they've been surprised by GT4 demand either. It's the kind of car the market has been crying out for basically since the Cayman was first introduced, and Porsche must be well aware of demand for older GT-model products - it should hardly have been a great surprise that people wanted a £64k car that's lighter and smaller than a 911 and comes with lots of GT3 bits underneath.
The whole business is starting to put me off the company though. It's a different kind of daft to Ferrari's vetting process but it's still daft. If I was ever in the position to afford one of these things - if I was eventually editor of a mag, for example - it'd be pretty rough to be denied the opportunity to buy one simply because a dealer has decided it's better to sell to a customer it knows will sell the car back to it for some extra cash, that they can then put on the market for a massive premium. Even if I wasn't in such a position, the normal rules of the used car market just don't apply with stuff like this. Want to grab that awesome car when it depreciates? Sorry sucker, it's never gonna depreciate.
It's a side-effect of the current crazy classic market, but it seems like it's too much to ask any more to be able to slap down some money on a high-end driver's car without becoming embroiled in a tug-of-war between investors and dealerships.
- 8,642
- London
- GTP_Stotty
Porsche dealers buying back deliver mileage cars to sell on at a huge mark-up over list? Never happens 
Porsche need to sort their allocation process out for the limited run models... all it is at the moment is a way for already rich people to buy under priced cars and sell them on, splitting the huge profit with their dealers mates.
Porsche need to sort their allocation process out for the limited run models... all it is at the moment is a way for already rich people to buy under priced cars and sell them on, splitting the huge profit with their dealers mates.
- 23,954
- It/It
- GTP_TheCracker
If it's just for the low-run GT models, then why not cut the dealers out of the process all together and only sell direct from the factory. You'll never be able to entirely stop speculators, but at least you can stop the dealers profiteering from the sale and delivery-miles resale of them. I'd imagine that customers will feel its more special to deal direct with the factory too. Were not talking about a vast amount of cars, not enough for it to be a major PITA for 'the factory' to set up, and not enough for dealers to start moaning about loss of (honest) revenue. It might be the dealers who are making these dubious deals, but it only reflects badly on Porsche themselves.
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
Some do, but only the lucky ones. Despite the spiralling cost of old GT3 models we still regularly get people at our mag-organised track days taking them around, and I bet there'll be a few GT4s this year doing the same.
But your solution is nonsensical. Stopping speculators making the cars unaffordable by making the cars unaffordable is like preventing cholera deaths by killing everyone with malaria.
Building more cars to redress the supply/demand balance and limit the market value is a better solution. People will still try and take the piss, but there's less scope for doing so when supply isn't so limited. If Porsche made 5000 911Rs the value would be a lot less than it will be for the 991 they're actually building.
And if people complain about resale, screw 'em. They're hardly likely to plummet in value and anyone really complaining probably isn't the sort who was intending to drive the thing anyway.
- 38,921
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
It isn't nonsensical. Porsche is losing tons of money here. They're not making enough cars. If they're really set on making only 30 cars, their price should be a lot higher. It's simple economics.
If they really wanted people to drive them as much as possible, they could create an auction lease program. Dollars plus miles = points. The car goes to whomever is willing to "pay" the most points. The odd bit would be sorting out how many points each mile is worth. And porsche would keep ownership to sell to museums once the rich plebs have driven them into the ground.
If they really wanted people to drive them as much as possible, they could create an auction lease program. Dollars plus miles = points. The car goes to whomever is willing to "pay" the most points. The odd bit would be sorting out how many points each mile is worth. And porsche would keep ownership to sell to museums once the rich plebs have driven them into the ground.
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- 23,954
- It/It
- GTP_TheCracker
It really comes down to what value and by that i mean 'marketing value' Porsche puts on their GT models. If they only ever make in the region of 4000 GT3's and say 3000 GT3RS's for each model (996, 991 etc) then there's never going to be a high profit available, if any at all. The value comes from the halo effect it has on other lesser 911's (or Cayman's) and that in turn has a halo effect on the plebeian Cayenne's, Panamara's and Macans - which are Porsche's higher volume cash-cows.
- 11,823
- Marin County
I'm predicting we are 6-12 months away from a fairly large crash in this market. All it will take is for the hype to wear off *just* enough for people to think twice. When they do that, the tremendous overvaluations will come tumbling down as people will try to offload their 'investments' at whatever price sells, which will just create a feedback loop of massive depreciation. I think it's why Jerry Seinfeld just sold 17 cars in his collection. We've already begun to see auction prices taper off. A Carrera GT recently sold for $650,000, vastly less than its predicted sell price.
I think this all coincides with a larger housing(again) and tech-sector bubble that is on an eminent verge of collapsing prodigiously. The overvaluation of everything right now due to hype is simply, catastrophically, unsustainable. In no universe should Uber should be worth more than General Motors. Many tech companies pay their employees salaries much, much higher than the company's profit (if there is any) can support. Investments will stop flowing in, eventually. I doubt many of these companies have a business model adequate to survive without it. Of course the CEO's have made their billions already, they don't care.
I can't believe how collectively stupid western economic recklessness is. This city, especially, is in for one hell of a wild ride very soon. I've gotten a bit off topic...
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
Yes it is.
No. Porsche is making vast profits and almost certainly making big money on the GT cars even at retail prices. Could they make more money? Probably yes.
Correct. Making more would be the sensible solution to this issue, as I've already suggested.
I'm not sure we were taught the same kind of economics in school. Or at least not to the same level.
Porsche almost certainly sets a fairly healthy profit margin on the GT products (or indeed any of its cars) and has no problem selling them. If there was a legitimate reason - other than pure greed - for setting prices higher, they already would have done so. From a basic business perspective, one assumes that Porsche it not only not "losing tons of money", but actively making tons of money.
Bumping up the price to artificially restrict the number of customers who can afford their cars to the number they're willing to produce is a ridiculous solution to the problem. It's more likely to kill demand than bring it in line with supply, it'd be certain to destroy remaining goodwill with customers, and it would reduce every one of their limited-series cars to mere investable commodities. The current situation isn't a great one but at least the market is deciding the price in a fairly natural way and not all the cars are becoming commodities.
Because the best way of getting people to drive cars isn't the simple solution of reducing their investment potential by increasing supply, but by holding some kind of ridiculous lottery where points mean prizes. At the end of which the cars are left to rot in museums.
I agree, though every time I think "the market has to crash soon" some lunatic buys a 190 Evo II for £300k or a shonky turbocharged Escort for £60k or a sodding Peel P50 for £120k. For every car selling below estimate there's still something going massively over, so I half suspect the market has a little more momentum in it right now.
My other worry is that it's a perpetual-motion machine at the moment. Let's say for example that there are thousands of customer As, Bs, Cs, and Ds in the market. As have a budget of $10k, Bs have a budget of $20k, Cs have a budget of $30k and Ds have a budget of $40k.
Customer D has a car that typically sells for $40k, but then the market crashes and it's only worth $30k. Customer C has always wanted one of those and snaps it up - as do all the other customer Cs with all the other cars that have dropped in value. Coincidentally, one of the other customer C's old $30k cars is worth less too, now $20k, putting it in reach of all the customer Bs who couldn't afford it. And the same happens with B's old car, so now A can afford it.
My theory is that there's always a layer of customers below the market price waiting for the moment prices tumble to snap up the cars. Cars are thusly snapped up, brief oversupply dries up, and prices once again start to rise - soon customer A can't afford B's car any more, B can't afford C's and so-on.
I'm effectively a customer A - I've got money waiting should 105-series Alfas or Datsun 240Zs drop back to the values they were ten years ago, but once everyone like me has bought all those cheapies, what's the likelihood of them remaining cheap? Of course I won't mind too much, since I'll have one of my dream cars... but then I'll be customer B and there'll be some poor sod customer A wishing prats like me weren't sitting on an appreciating classic. And I'd still have no chance of being a customer C, since all those cars will have risen beyond my means in the meantime...
While I think the extreme auction results will cease at some stage, I don't think the general market trend of rising prices will. I think a lot of the price rises are genuine - baby boomers and gen-Xers buying up the cars of their childhood to relive their youth, a mistrust of where the modern automotive market is going making classics more desirable at all levels, and the internet meaning most people now know what they have, meaning there are very few true bargains out there any longer.
The only way to really "beat" the market is to join it at the moment. Get in on the ground floor with the stuff that's currently affordable - that's most stuff from the mid-90s to the mid-00s - that was desirable back in the day and cheap now. The general Japanese performance stuff hasn't gone too insane, with a few exceptions (R32s, NSXs). 90s American muscle isn't that desirable right now but in 10-20 years there'll be a whole generation wishing they had an SN95 or F-body. 90s Alfas, BMWs, Mercs and the like are cheap too and offer a hell of a lot of bang for the buck, without being too complex that you can't fix them yourself. In the UK, Porsche 996s are dirt cheap at the moment. Yes, they have a few issues, but not issues that can't be fixed. And given a few years, people will realise that they're wonderfully compact compared to modern 911s, and have steering feel that hasn't been bettered since.
Some stuff will be forever out of reach, but whatever happens in the market, I kinda think it's best not to worry about it too much and enjoy what you can afford.
- 40,794
I still find it amusing that the market has decided pretty much every single 911 of any importance is worth twice as much now as it was five years ago.
Except the 996.
Except the 996.
I like how the article felt it fit to remind the reader that yes, this is the same Jerry Seinfeld who was in Seinfeld.
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
The (non-GT3) 996 is just at the bottom of its depreciation curve now. (Non-GT3) 997s are still coming down and (non-GT3) 991s are depreciating too.
It's hard not to imagine the 996 going the same way as other 911s, and the more special examples already have. In fact, to realistically get a decent 996 I suspect you'll already pay a little more than one or two years ago.
And the GT3s are already expensive. Going rate in the UK for a 996 GT3 seems to be about £60k-£70k at the moment (which still looks like amazing value compared to the newer stuff, considering how good the GT3 still is) and GT3 RSs are double that.
My (nonexistent) 996 money would be on a 996.2 Carrera 2, manual, in black. More attractive than the earlier ones, bit more power, still great value at sub-£20k over here. Unlikely to lose much money either, since as soon as the very bottom of the 996 market disappears (i.e. people start deciding they're worth more than £10k), the better ones will fall no further.
- 38,921
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
No, it isn't. See below, please:
QED.
No need to get all emo here. Don't strawman me. The problem we've identified is that these Porsches are ballooning in value. Therefore, speculators are buying them up and keeping them without driving them so that they can sell them at a later date. Selling the cars at the much-higher price that the market is suggesting would disincentivize speculators, since nobody would buy a depreciating asset just to park it. If Porsche continues to sell these limited cars at less than true market value, it is only incentivizing people to snatch them up, and store them like new without having driven them to maximize their speculative gains. Again, the only reason you'd buy a Porsche that was losing monetary value was because you valued the driving experience more. In other words, raising the price is a valid and useful tool to best allocate these scarce Porsches to people that would drive them.
What difference does it make with their customers? They literally have no goodwill with the population of their customers minus 30. Nobody has the opportunity to purchase the car to drive anyway, as you say. They're all parked by museums and speculators, right? Bumping up the price does exactly bring demand in line with supply. It is economic. You're confused. It doesn't make the limited-series cars into "investible commodities," whatever that means. Right now those cars are investments. Investments are things that you try to keep in new condition. Commodities are things that you use. The best way to get people to use their cars is to sell them at a price that depreciates.
That was assuming they were by no means going to make more cars. Honestly, this lottery system would be highly generous of Porsche. They ought to just raise the price. Conserving such generosity, they could perhaps make their entry cars cheaper in the process. That would be a better way to get people into the brand than to appease the not-quite-the-richest GT snobs.
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
Edit: Sod it, I'll make this as simple as possible.
We also agree - don't we? - that one of the problems is that speculators are snapping up the allocation and immediately pushing prices up, with the net result that many genuine customers can neither get hold of nor afford the cars once the dust has settled.
Do you think the sensible. logical solution to this issue is to:
a) Put prices up further from the factory?, or
b) Increase allocation?
Given that a) won't actually solve the problem of limited allocation and high prices - because by its nature allocation hasn't increased and prices have stayed high - and therefore fail to meet the end goal of ensuring that GT models can be enjoyed by people who want to drive them.
Is the best solution here greater numbers of cars (hint: it's that one), or to artificially elevate prices and hold some kind of crazy lottery to decide whether people are able to drive them or not?
We agree - don't we? - the end goal here is to ensure that the GT models can be enjoyed by people who want to drive them.
We also agree - don't we? - that one of the problems is that speculators are snapping up the allocation and immediately pushing prices up, with the net result that many genuine customers can neither get hold of nor afford the cars once the dust has settled.
Do you think the sensible. logical solution to this issue is to:
a) Put prices up further from the factory?, or
b) Increase allocation?
Given that a) won't actually solve the problem of limited allocation and high prices - because by its nature allocation hasn't increased and prices have stayed high - and therefore fail to meet the end goal of ensuring that GT models can be enjoyed by people who want to drive them.
Is the best solution here greater numbers of cars (hint: it's that one), or to artificially elevate prices and hold some kind of crazy lottery to decide whether people are able to drive them or not?
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- 8,642
- London
- GTP_Stotty
Porsche can't charge £500k for a 991R when the Carrera is only £90k. They need to increase allocations - not 5,000 R's, but 2,000 say, instead of 991.
The 'bubble' (if indeed it is one) is not going to burst in the near future. The economic factors that caused it are still around and unlikely to change any time soon. Prices will soften (as they have over the past 6 months or so), but they won't suddenly crash - we'll never see 996GT2's at £40k again, or 964RS's at £25k, for example.
And although ordinary cars may have softened, the very best cars are still commanding crazy money.
The 'bubble' (if indeed it is one) is not going to burst in the near future. The economic factors that caused it are still around and unlikely to change any time soon. Prices will soften (as they have over the past 6 months or so), but they won't suddenly crash - we'll never see 996GT2's at £40k again, or 964RS's at £25k, for example.
And although ordinary cars may have softened, the very best cars are still commanding crazy money.
- 38,921
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
Here's your problem: you're not arguing within the premises we've established. We both agree that Porsche should just make more cars. But if they're only making 30, then they need to raise the price on those 30. That is the simple truth. The goal was never to make the 911R available to all driving enthusiasts. The goal was for those 30 cars to be bought in order to drive and not to sit in storage as an investment piece. I don't know why you're so mad about this.
- 27,208
- United Kingdom
I'm not mad, I just think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the issue.
Whether it makes sense (at a very basic, black and white, high-school economic level) or not to simply bump up the price to some pre-determined level that result in demand precisely meeting supply, that doesn't change the actual problem in the market that people are unable to get hold of cars.
That is the premise we've established. You even wrote it in your post to @Clark and then immediately disregarded the more sensible of your two solutions!
Your second option (raising the price) is simply creating a different kind of problem. The first option (make more cars - like I've been saying all along!) is actually a solution to the existing problem.
Re-read my simplified post above. If there are too few cars available, is the solution to make more cars available, or is it to raise the price to (or above) that which the market is naturally taking the cars anyway? And if the latter, how do you propose raising the price fixes the bolded problem that "these people aren't getting to drive the cars"?
- 38,921
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
I know that. But, before Porsche go making new cars, the only other option available is to raise the price to better reflect the market, as I have been saying. It's a miscalculation, or flat-out generosity, that Porsche decided that they were going to make only 30 cars and then price them such that they sold out before they ever went on sale (wat?). Now the museum connections got a hold of them and are treating them like investments, whereas rich driver-enthusiasts could have ponied up much more to buy one to actually drive and not treat like an appreciating investment that must be babied and handled with kid gloves at all times.
