Suicide Jockey

Two big color stories in the news. First, from Car and Driver:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a2...-vinyl-racing/

"Porsche Now Offering Sweet Vintage Racing Liveries, Funky Colors via Body Wraps

European customers can now have their modern Porsches wrapped to resemble classic racing liveries.

Owners of late-model Porsche 911s, 718 Boxsters, and 718 Caymans, rejoice: You now can order up a sweet stick-on vinyl racing livery inspired by Porsche race cars of yore. You'll need two things: to live in or be able to send a car to Europe (at least for now), and between $4500 and $6800 to give to SecondSkin, a car-wrapping firm started by Porsche.

According to SecondSkin, anyone can bring a car—Porsche or otherwise—to them for a wrap, but the company's online configurator only shows the classic racing liveries as being available for the current- and previous-generation 911 as well as the aforementioned 718 Boxster and Cayman models. Those racing liveries include the familiar orange-over-blue Gulf theme; the red-and-white 917 Salzburg theme; and the iconic red, white, and blue Martini Racing getup. Would-be customers can fiddle with these, swapping in different colors while keeping the same basic stripe design.

Those with other cars can indulge in a full-body wrap in one of 25 colors drawn from the Porsche Exclusive color palette for their ride (so, too, can those 911 and 718 owners). We've reached out to SecondSkin to see whether their services might spread to the U.S., because we desperately want them to. In the meantime, have fun using the SecondSkin configurator to design and visualize the retro-fab Porsche of your dreams."


Second item of note:

For those that may not be PCA members and maybe haven't heard, or those that may have missed prior posts on this topic (by Eduardo, I believe), a great color resource, Rennbow, is now live at:

https://rennbow.org/colorwiki

You don't need to be a PCA member to access. From the PCA enews letter yesterday:

"Rennbow, a searchable Porsche color database

Tuesday, June 11, 2019


PCA has launched what promises to be one of the most ambitious Porsche enthusiast-related sites to date. Rennbow, The Porsche Color Wiki (www.rennbow.org (link is external)) will be the largest collection of Porsche images on the web organized by color.

Visit Rennbow (link is external)

Two years in the making, the site contains a listing for nearly every Porsche color offered from 1950 up to 2012. The individual entries contain the models and model years during which the colors were offered, the German translation of the color, the color code, a rareness rating on a one-to-five scale (one being the most common and five being the “unicorn” colors), and, in most cases, multiple images in different lighting plus incisive commentary on the color.



“The members of the Porsche Club of America have always been fascinated by color, so two years ago we decided to undertake this project, something not previously attempted on this scale,” said Rob Sass, Editor-in-Chief of Porsche Panorama and Director of Content for the Club.

“During the 70th anniversary celebration in Stuttgart last June, we discussed Rennbow with senior Porsche management, who gave the project their blessing and support,” said Vu Nguyen, PCA Executive Director. Rennbow and PCA are, however, not connected with Porsche AG or Porsche Cars of North America, and no such affiliation should be inferred.

AN IMAGE LIBRARY UNPRECEDENTED IN ITS REPRESENTATION OF PORSCHE COLORS
Before it went live, the site was pre-loaded with almost 1,800 images and more than 500 colors, representing the majority of Porsche colors offered. The image library and color coverage will continue to grow indefinitely via user-submitted images. The site will also house color-related content ranging from blog posts to feature stories. “We think it will be a great resource for anyone who wants to research a Porsche color, or just be entertained by the diversity and the sheer scope of the Porsche palette over the last seven decades,” said Sass.



Rennbow is searchable by color name, color family, model, model year, or in its entirety via a page with color samples designed to look like a factory paint color brochure from the 1970s. The site launched today, June 11, 2019, and it will be free of charge to both PCA members and non-members. Anyone may submit an image for inclusion in Rennbow as long as they own the copyright to the image."

Goonfather

Very useful and also had a bit of fun playing around guessing the rarity of the paint codes. A few surprises!

n4v4nod

It’s funny... I use to be all about PTS... living through the process successfully. Seems since they have opened it up, PTS is not as rare and they mean less now... especially now that they doubled the price! I feel like I see a new PTS sample posted every day on Instagram. It use to be a treat to find one... now they are everywhere. IIRC....to do a true one of a kind color (not picking from the PTS list... you have to pay three times more for a feasibility test? I’m sure Eduardo will can confirm. The whole process now is a joke and only for people where money is no object.... but hey maybe that was Porsche intention. Makes it special for the initial buyer, but that’s it. I’m sure many will disagree... but that’s the fun of forums. Everyone has an opinion.

Marine Blue

For me PTS had nothing to do with the rarity or uniqueness of it, it was simply a means of getting the color I really wanted on my car. Sadly I missed the 987 PTS window and that still leaves a bid of a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I’m not happy with Basalt but I really wanted a light metallic blue for my first Porsche ordered from the factory.

JSF101

Donavan......think you nailed it!!

at least we have Miami Blue (semi Mexico or Riviera Blue) and Lizard Green (almost a Green Yellow clone)

cheers,
Steve

JSF101

p.s. Rubystone Red would be a great color for Boxster Spyder or GT4 reveal

like many colors, Rubystone Red would be a polarizing color

which is why most Porsches are silver, white & black

Suicide Jockey

I had a shot at PTS on my Spyder at the time I ordered my car, but I wasn't well-versed in the ways of PTS and wanted to see various color samples first before deciding on a PTS color. Well, he who hesitates is lost when it comes to PTS! I should have known my color going in. Instead, too much time was lost in indecision and trying unsuccessfully to get an appointment with Porsche Exclusive folks in Beverly Hills at the time. So I squandered my PTS opportunity. Now PTS is priced beyond my means so that ship has sailed (not that I plan on ordering a new Porsche anytime soon).

As far as the proliferation of PTS cars goes, maybe the drastic increase in prices will put a halt to that. An argument can be made that the proliferation is due to Porsche having under-priced the option. In theory, anyone who bemoans the proliferation of PTS cars should be in favor of the drastic price increase, right?

Wondering what effect, if any, Rennbow will have on PTS. Might we now see folks ordering some truly unique PTS colors going forward, instead of the more common PTS colors like, say, Riviera Blue (which I love)? This centralized color resource will give PTS customers an easy way to research colors and alert folks to colors they previously didn't know existed. I realize there is a list of approved PTS colors at any given time and all of the colors reflected in Rennbow are not available for PTS, but still I think Rennbow may lead to more PTS cars in what I would call "non-standard" PTS colors. Just a hunch.

n4v4nod

Judging by Instagram I don’t think the price increase is stopping anyone. Honestly think Porsche just increased the price and made the PTS window way bigger. So if you have money you should have no problem getting one. Where before, it was all timing if your build allocation happened to fit into the PTS window... which wasn’t ever publicly communicated. It would pop up and could go away at anytime. It was like winning the lottery... which pissed off many... but this made them more rare and value of PTS cars increased. Currently at 12k for PTS and no shortage of supply means no increased value return? but maybe that’s the way it should be.

Suicide Jockey

I see what you're saying. PTS was as you described when we ordered our 981 Spyders. Short windows. Not much advance notice of availability. The window could open or close with no notice. Very hit and miss and quite frustrating. It took perseverance, good timing, and more than a little luck. But I thought that's the way it still is. I didn't know that the window is now wide open so anyone who wants PTS can get it. Sorta takes the fun and the challenge out of it! I have to think the cost though will deter some from opting for PTS, but maybe you're right. Maybe there is so much $$$ out there that the number of PTS cars will actually increase with the easier availability.

n4v4nod

Maybe I’m wrong on the window thing... I’m just judging by Instagram and how many PTS cars I see now... compared to before it was a true rare thing to see and I got excited when I saw one. I’m sure it’s just my bad assumption?

uscarrera

I love PTS Porsches have for years if for no other reason easy to find my car in a all Porsche parking lot
Rich

Orange 996



Fly yellow SC

grgallo

I appreciate the color database, glad to see Porsche doing this, however I'm not clear on how they define rarity. For example, Carmine Red (full disclosure: I'm a former owner of an '87 Carmine Red 911 Coupe); looking at their summary they say, Carmine Red = one paint can, i.e., not rare, common (five cans the rarest). The summary states this color was available as an option, not standard in 1987-88 for the 911. Then we don't see the color in a 911 until 2012 (24 years later), then again for 911's 2012; 2016-18. Then it gets "better", Carmine Red is available in Boxster '14-'16; Cayenne '12-'17; Cayman '14-'16; Macan '17-'18; Panamera '12-'18. Let me guess how a rare color in an air-cooled 911 became common? You would think that Porsche as analytical as they are would've fine tuned their summary by models and years or at least by sports cars v. SUV's and sedans.

Suicide Jockey

Not trying to excuse or defend any innaccuracies in the info on Rennbow as it relates to color availability during certain years on certain models, but would just say that this project strikes me as a pretty big undertaking, which is still in its infancy. It might take a while to get the kinks out and fine tune the info. Plus, this is a PCA project and not a Porsche AG endeavor, so I'm not sure PCA necessarily has all the detailed statistical color data AG has. My guess is Rennbow will only get better over time as users point out innaccuracies and the info on the site is further refined.

Love the idea of user-submitted images. Some pics will be outside in full sunlight. Some will be inside. It will give an idea of how colors look in varying environments.

When I went to GT Silver Metallic it said this was a color for which no photos were yet available, so I submitted five pics of my Spyder that I thought were a good representation of the paint color. This resource will only be as good as the photos received so if you haven't done so already, folks should give some thought to sending in some good photos of your car to help build this color database.

n4v4nod

I agree... it will be an awesome reference tool which is long overdue and as you say will get better over time.

Rarity might be based on on all Porsche’s, Not by model... you are more likely to see a Carmine Red Porsche than say a Sport Classic Grey Porsche. But as stated if you look by model that changes dramatically.

grgallo

I appreciate the endeavor by PCNA, I agree it will be an excellent resource, I'm not questioning the accuracy, certainly PCNA and Porsche AG have tons more data than we do. I'm questioning a simple cut of the data model/year/color, easily made. Certainly they thought of this data cut, maybe they wanted to get this out sooner than later. Perhaps will see this data in the future. I did submit to the database the Carmine Red '87 Coupe.