billh1963

Me thinks the GTS may be the water cooled crowd what the 993 is to the air cooled guys....the last of an era

DrJay

You all may be shocked to learn of this, and I hate to be the bringer of bad news... However, the hardcore, no frills, no options sports car guys are such a tiny fraction of the real world customers of Porsche, that I do not fault them for what they are doing. If they did what you want, well, they would be Lotus...

You can always go buy an Exige or Elise if you want your no frills sports car...

Also, the 997s are no slouch when it comes to frills and options and luxury items in the car.

Alan Smithee

DrJay, dilution of brand image for the sake of short term profits can have disastrous long term effects. Too many examples to count, within the the auto industry and outside of it.

alexb76

Electric steering to cut emissions aparently!

The 3 pedal PDK shifter is actually the only plus from the new car design!

DrJay

That is true, and the current path Lotus is taking is a good example of that, but I think you may not be getting that we here on Rennlist are not the standard that Porsche used when deciding what their brand image is or isn't.

Mike in CA

That's an interesting generalization, but it doesn't apply in this case. The undeniable fact is that if Porsche had not "diluted the brand" by expanding the appeal of it's sports cars and building the Cayenne and Panamera they would be dead now as a car company and we wouldn't be having this discussion about a new 911. It doesn't get much more disastrous than that. Anyone who believes otherwise is being naive.

ADias

That is true until now. But the Porsche buyer is changing. China will soon be their largest market and they will dictate the range of products. PAG is simply following the market - a market some of us do not care for - which demands luxury and doodads, sport characteristics be damned.

PAG's designs are also highly influenced by regulatory bodies (e.g., EPA). The WB increase was made to increase the 991 footprint and place it in a regulated tier with more lenient regs. The hybrid crap follows suit in 2 years - and when that comes, there goes out of the window any weight savings. And so goes the world.

Mike in CA

Indeed. I'm not saying I'm neccesarily happy about the way things have worked out. In a perfect world maybe Porsche would only build pure sports cars, would still find plenty of buyers for them, and could still afford to race and do things like mount the Le Mans challenge for 2014 that you posted about. But the world's not perfect is it?

OTOH, I'm really happy to have a new Cayenne S sitting next to the Carrera S in my garage. Since I need an SUV anyway, I think it's kind of cool that I can have one with the attributes of a Porsche, so it's not all bad.

fer2367

I hate the center stack...unnecesarily big and bulky, looks out of place in a sports (even a GT) car. I understand evolution and I am sure the newer car will be better, but the interior is not doing it for me. Dissapointed

Alan Smithee

We are still in the short term since Porsche's transition from sports car maker to luxury car brand.

Porsche is quickly becoming a sporty VW/Audi (the upcoming Cajun and 550 only reinforcing this, with the next Panamera sharing a VW/Audi/Bentley platform). Not unlike how Pontiac was once a sporty Chevy, and how SAAB, on its last legs, is a sporty Buick.

Fiat's handling of Ferrari and Maserati, Ford's handling of Aston Martin, and VW's own handling of Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Bentley are better examples of retaining brand identity while moving the brand forward.

Alan Smithee

Oh, I get it...just saying that changing the core product to appeal to a different customer base in search of bigger profit is a risky and foolish move, IMO.

simsgw

Not that I'm in the market this soon, being a once-a-decade buyer, but I have to agree with Mike and Tony in most respects. I don't think the Chinese taste has overwhelmed the German interest in the American market and it may not for years. Otherwise I agree with you both, especially about the changes to soften the impact of regulatory changes.

Everyone else who doubts Porsche's 'new' taste should remember that effectively Porsche ended up winning the wrestling match over the German car industry. They are part of one of the largest car conglomerates in the world now, but in effect they ended up running it. That larger group is much better positioned to deal with regulatory problems, and for our future purchases it is a net gain. To the disgust of some other engineering departments, Porsche's has the guiding hand in sports models. And the Porsche brand is planned to sell an awful lot of cars by past standards, but the spirit of Porsche is intended to remain sports cars, never mind they already sell more of everything else. That means they explicitly plan to keep their sports car image by keeping a sports car as their image vehicle. The Carrera, the Spyder, the Cayman R, are not models that ever will sell in financially significant numbers to a conglomerate that owns Volkswagen and Audi as well. But they are terribly important cars to the spirit of Porsche and in turn Porsche itself is terribly important as the engineering lead for the whole magilla.

Remember the fuss when the 996 "went soft"? Some cheaper materials here, a little concession to the comfort factor over there, and the sky was falling. What really mattered was Porsche survived a period that looked like the end for a small sports car company. Now we have to tolerate a few concessions to survival in a Western world that would just as soon legislate cars out of existence that have less than forty seats, let alone two. I'm glad they are selling so well in China (for a lot of reasons besides my future purchase options) but I think they have a generous cadre of people in Porsche who love sports cars and I'm sure they'll hang onto that spirit until times improve.

Wait until we see the 991 GT3.

Gary

billh1963

Maybe....but will it go the way of the Thunderbird, Mustang, Z-cars, etc. that slowly "devolved" into plush poseur mobiles?

I could make some political statements here....but, keep in mind that the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions. If Porsche is not careful, they could easily lose their edge.

simsgw

I wouldn't expect it. Overall, the conglomerate certainly will sell such cars, and in their hundreds of thousands, but an enthusiast market always exists and sales to us create an aura that is very desirable for selling all those other cars to people less hard core. Moreover, it's going to become difficult for the independents to sell cars to anybody but Top Gear. Very difficult, so the market for true sports cars will be divided into fewer pieces.

We can't kid ourselves about regulatory issues, and especially about political correctness in Germany itself, but I do expect that insofar as laws permit Porsche will be selling serious sports cars for a very long time to come.

One reason I welcome the Chinese market is they have... different political issues. That complicates an engineer's life, but it does mean that our combined markets, along with the always fraught Middle East market, add up to enough sales to keep them pushing the regulatory bounds to keep us happy and create that aura.

Honda built and sold the NSX for a couple of decades although they actually made only a few hundred each year after the first couple of years. The VIN number on our 1999 was 000068 for all love. They had decided at the corporate level (despite Formula One sponsorship, which startles me) that they didn't want to acquire a sports car panache for the corporation. They rejected it as a policy decision. Since they were shipping bushels of dollar bills in the trunk of every NSX (because they essentially had to build them by hand at those volume levels) it was only national pride that kept them building even the ones they did. Extremely large corporate entities like Honda and Volkwagen Group can afford to build low-volume cars like the Carrera line, and even ridiculously-low-volume cars like the NSX just as long as they see a corporate interest in the result.

For Honda, that return was in national pride and the resulting morale boost to their employees and halo effects in their domestic market. Volkswagen group describes to investors an interest in Porsche as their lead engineering firm, a background role they've played for decades, and a realistic return on the Porsche name directly in selling high-end luxury cars and SUV's. That name depends on us, to be brutally honest. They have to keep us, including our mates in China and the Middle East and Europe and Britain, and even South America, happy with the Porsche sports cars in order to sustain that reputation.

No reason to go the Thunderbird route when they, meaning they=Volkswagen Group, have an ample supply of such models to sell under other brands.

Or so it seems to me in the year eleven. And so they have said publicly. Lets hope it stays that way in their corporate opinion well into the twenties. Wonder if they'll roar this time around? Hope I'm around to find out...

Gary

ADias

Another preview from Autocar: http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsAr...llCars/258004/

Last paragraph:

"But is it still a 911? If it is, my sense is that it will be a rather different one – even more capable, usable, spacious, comfortable and quiet. But whether this has been achieved at the expense of some of that magical 997 ability to make you feel hardwired into the road surface, it is simply impossible to say without a steering wheel in your hands."