Flipping

[bcr5784]

http://blog.caranddriver.com/porsche-plans-crackdo...

Really? The answer is simple - let anyone who wants one buy one. It's not rocket science.

[LiamH66]

For the new GT3, my local OPC had 118 letters expressing interest, and was allocated 7 cars. Got to wonder how many they would need to make before the GT cars stopped being such an unusual treat as to make the values fly up. The allotment of allocations is not made on a first come, first served basis, and by the time I asked, the dealer evidently had a pretty good idea where all were going. There does seem to be a genuine will to sell them to those that want to keep them. The less that are flipping them, the more the value goes up.

Very strange world, but when they can make enough to satisfy demand, they will probably stop making them. Seem to be an awful lot of 981 GT4s on the market, but I'm not sure that prices have softened much, or ever will.

Liam

[decrassius]

Isn't Porsche forced to limit its GT models to avoid breaching average CO2 emissions?

From an online search, in 2015 each manufacturer was forced to have fleet average emissions of 130g/km. A GT4 releases 238g/km.

I'm no expert - I think in reality the average limit may have been higher than 130 as there are exemptions in the rules - but the rule limits average fleet emissions, and clearly GT cars sit at the top end of that average.

I doubt Porsche intentionally releases less GT models to generate a reputation of exclusivity. I don't think the marketing benefits (if there are any - it annoys plenty of people too) outweigh the cold hard cash they could make for themselves.

[decrassius]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That makes sense on emissions, sort of (would Ferrari really have gone turbo charged for the sake of a 400k fine??? And would Porsche have gone with turbos if they didn't have to??? Obviously not. There must be more teeth to the regs somehow.)

However the economics of limiting the production of halo cars doesn't stack up for me. The point is: if you want your brand image to improve, make good cars. If you make lots of good cars, your brand image will still improve. And you'll have more happy customers. The BMW e46 M3 was revered and did wonders for the BMW M brand, even though tens of thousands were made.

[Cheib]

Porsche is limited by production capacity more than anything....they make circa 30,000 911's a year and the factory's at full capacity. 3/4 of all Porsche production is Macan/Cayenne. In the UK Porsche sell I think roughly 13,000 cars a year of which I think 2,000 are 911's...divide that across the 40 odd dealerships and suddenly you'll see how few new 911's each OPC actually sells each year. Which is why an allocation of somewhere between 5 and 10 GT3's per OPC starts to make sense....if each OPC got 20 GT3's it would be a massive % of the 911's they sold every year. They then would have enough "normal" 911's.

I know they've been moving production around of the various models between factories over the last couple of years....presumably they'll start to be able to increase production across the 911 and 718 models in due course.

[Cheib]

decrassius said:

That makes sense on emissions, sort of (would Ferrari really have gone turbo charged for the sake of a 400k fine??? And would Porsche have gone with turbos if they didn't have to??? Obviously not. There must be more teeth to the regs somehow.)

I think cost is a big reason for the change to Turbo's...on 991.1 the Carrera/Carrera S had two different engines blocks with the GTS having a Powerkit. in 991.2 those three cars share the same engine with slightly different turbo charging tech. That would have been a lot cheaper on the R&D front and also probably cheaper to manufacture as there's now only one (smaller) engine block which is also a benefit from a logistics standpoint. Obviously a turbocharger isn't free but I am sure taking everything into account the new engines are much better for Porsche's bottom line. Same obviously applies to the 718.

[n17ves]

Interesting....

Porsche GB are not clamping down on it at all, its took me weeks and weeks of back and forth communication to get anywhere with them. They are quite atrocious to deal with.

[IcedKiwi]

decrassius said:

That makes sense on emissions, sort of (would Ferrari really have gone turbo charged for the sake of a 400k fine??? And would Porsche have gone with turbos if they didn't have to??? Obviously not. There must be more teeth to the regs somehow.)

I assume that's just an EU fine.

According the Shmee (sorry) when he did a piece on the GTC4 Lusso T, he mentioned it it was partly driven by emerging markets like China where high CO2/displacement cars are taxed a lot more and a V12 version could cost twice as much as the V8 version.

Therefore if they want to sell cars to China in any significant number, they needed to develop a smaller more efficient engine.

[anonymous-user]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yes, it's as simple as that.

[hunter 66]

You must remember that the "halo" cars used to be very difficult to shift .... requiring a hard sell ... as they had a hard ride . Now electronic management has made essentially track cars easy and even comfortable to drive ( my 64 RS had no radio ) , that along with social media desirability has changed things ...

[hornbaek]

Just a sign of the times. Low interest rates fuelling an unsustainable demand based on debt. Just wait - this will all normalise.

[RedSwede]

rockin said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yes, it's as simple as that.

Quite - the internet-fed hype and the flipping potential itself is all that drives this stupidity. 117 LOIs to one dealership, with 7 allocations? Come on - with 35 dealers or something, do we really think that ~4000 people want (actually want) a GT3? Porsche didn't shift much more than that *total* for all sportscars in 2016.

Selling to "genuine" people who want to buy the car probably isn't going to work. As above, with supply restricted, the used market will climb and climb - and no matter how much of an enthusiast you are, the temptation will get pretty strong to move it on when 200/300/400k "profit" is at stake.

They would probably have to build enough cars to satisfy each and every one of those 4000 LOIs (UK only), break the cycle and flood the market to stop this once and for all. That can't happen (they would need to massively ramp production) and would be bad for Porsche's brand when used values started tanking, probably across the board.

[RedSwede]

RedSwede said:

rockin said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yes, it's as simple as that.

Quite - the internet-fed hype and the flipping potential itself is all that drives this stupidity. 117 LOIs to one dealership, with 7 allocations? Come on - with 35 dealers or something, do we really think that ~4000 people want (actually want) a GT3? Porsche didn't shift much more than that *total* for all sportscars in 2016 (Edit: talking UK only).

Selling to "genuine" people who want to buy the car probably isn't going to work. As above, with supply restricted, the used market will climb and climb - and no matter how much of an enthusiast you are, the temptation will get pretty strong to move it on when 200/300/400k "profit" is at stake.

They would probably have to build enough cars to satisfy each and every one of those 4000 LOIs (UK only), break the cycle and flood the market to stop this once and for all. That can't happen (they would need to massively ramp production) and would be bad for Porsche's brand when used values started tanking, probably across the board.

[ras62]

Preuninger is simply giving his opinion on the subject, he's not stating company policy. Thats way out of his remit / paygrade.

[bcr5784]

RedSwede said:

They would probably have to build enough cars to satisfy each and every one of those 4000 LOIs (UK only), break the cycle and flood the market to stop this once and for all. That can't happen (they would need to massively ramp production) and would be bad for Porsche's brand when used values started tanking, probably across the board.

Clearly they would have to build quite a few more, but if they made it absolutely clear that there would be no limit and started delivering on a short lead time and required large up front payments, it wouldn't be long before those LOIs would be withdrawn, production would find its natural level and used values would normalise too.

Problem is that it suits Porsche marketing to have all this hysteria surrounding their halo models, so they won't do anything meaningfull.

[RedSwede]

It certainly would be interesting to see what happened if Porsche called everyone with an LOI and asked them to confirm their order...

If it was announced in advance that they were going to do that, I wouldn't be surprised if the final number ordered were not less than the original allocation...
If it wasn't announced in advance, I'm sure 90% of buyers would confirm then complain that they were duped into it.

(I'm also far from convinced that an appropriately optioned (SPASM, Manual, buckets, whatever) cooking 911 (leaving out the turbo/NA argument here) is not a better road car in every situation than a GT3, if we're honest with ourselves)

[Durzel]

bcr5784 said:

Problem is that it suits Porsche marketing to have all this hysteria surrounding their halo models, so they won't do anything meaningfull.

Exactly this.

Porsche is better off, bizarrely, for this furore over their GT cars than they would be if they strictly sold more of them. Porsche could quite easily soothe this market almost overnight by making a few more, doesn't have to be thousands, but it's unlikely they will. An uplift in production wouldn't result in a binary "all GT cars are suddenly worth less than list" change.

I'm naturally cynical but I think articles like this only really serve to superficially present an image of "caring about our cars being used", it's a lot of ostensibly soothing language that doesn't actually say anything meaningful.

As to 117 people applying for 7 cars - the market is such now that these cars are only really packaged and sold as cars for historical reasons. They are investment instruments now, save for the odd madman actually driving them. Porsche have no one else to blame but themselves for nurturing this market over several years, and to complain about it now smacks of them wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I don't for one minute believe that they aren't sharp enough to have not spotted this trend emerging and dampened years ago. Quite the opposite in fact, I think Porsche are masters at refining and cultivating this hysteria.

Put short - if they wanted it to change, they could've done a number of things to suppress it but actively chose not to. This article serves only to give the illusion that they're trying to make things better.

[LiamH66]

Durzel said:

<snip> Quite the opposite in fact, I think Porsche are masters at refining and cultivating this hysteria.

Put short - if they wanted it to change, they could've done a number of things to suppress it but actively chose not to. This article serves only to give the illusion that they're trying to make things better.

Not cynical in the slightest, and I think you are absolutely right. For the current "model" to work the flipping can't be stopped completely, it just needs to be minimised such that demand still massively outstrips supply, but there is still a market on which the unicorns are traded.

I have to wonder if there are any GTs out there doing a healthy 10,000 miles a year, and if there are, how their value compares with the more usual of somewhere between delivery mileage and a couple of thousand a year. Could you actually buy one to use and still hope to have an appreciating asset?

Liam

[breadvan]

LiamH66 said:

Not cynical in the slightest,

I have to wonder if there are any GTs out there doing a healthy 10,000 miles a year,

Liam

I get your point but 10,000 miles isn't healthy, it's nonsense.

The UK average annual mileage is 7,900 (RAC 2014) and who buys a GT3 as a daily driver?
Even without the mileage/depreciation fears you would still only see an average of 4,000 miles a year max.

[av185]

breadvan said:

LiamH66 said:

Not cynical in the slightest,

I have to wonder if there are any GTs out there doing a healthy 10,000 miles a year,

Liam

I get your point but 10,000 miles isn't healthy, it's nonsense.

The UK average annual mileage is 7,900 (RAC 2014) and who buys a GT3 as a daily driver?
Even without the mileage/depreciation fears you would still only see an average of 4,000 miles a year max.

Several of us (not me btw!) on PH who secured a 991.1 GT3 used their cars as dailies for 12k miles plus per annum. Incidentally, the 991.1 GT3 really was the last GT Porsche car you could order after official announcement and receive a guaranteed allocation. In fact mine was ordered in September 2013 some 6 months approx after it was announced, although it was the penultimate OPC car.

There are a number of gen 1s for sale with 20k plus miles at around otr list price.

For newish mainstream cars even at say £15k, mileage is clearly a major determinant on residual value. For any newish Porsche this is understandably even more significant. For Porsche GT cars, it is crucial. Thats the market, and really no different to any other vehicle in a similar price category.