Macca

This makes no sense? When are you suggesting - Porsche new model years start now? They have changed them to June?

jfr0317

Macca, it seems to me that the issue must lie in how a manufacturer chooses to label the model year for the U.S. or Canadian market. If I recall correctly, under U.S. regulations, cars produced at any time during a given year may be classified as being of the next model year (e.g., car produced in 2010 designated as 2011). Of course, if a manufacturer chooses to do so, the car would seem to have to comply with whatever applicable regulations are associated with that model year.

My 997 Turbo S cab has a "B" in the tenth character VIN position which designates 2011 model year. Since I know exactly when the car was produced and when I took delivery and what is on my title, I am certain it is a 2011 model year car under U.S. policies.

As for what impact this has on U.S. or ROW 991 GT3 model year designations, I have no idea.

Macca

Mate. Ill take your word on it. Pretty confusing. Heres the info on reading a VIN.

http://stuttcars.com/technical/vin-decoder/

So Porsche MY have changed from 01 September until a new designated date (which we are uncertain) which can change by model and market.

Surely someone on here working at a dealer can help us straighten this out so we are all enlightened...?

jfr0317

I actually used that same link to decode my VIN before originally posting about what the 10th character of my VIN was. My guess is that Porsche uses whatever flexibility they have in a given market to tweak the model year as needed for marketing purposes, corporate average fuel economy considerations, safety regulation compliance, etc.

For what it's worth, U.S. regulations have allowed manufacturers to have "early" model year launches for a very long time. My first car was a Ford-designated 1965 Mustang which was introduced as a 1965 model in April of 1964.

Mike in CA

I'm a bit confused by this model year discussion. Regardless of what methodology is used by the manufacturer to determine when the new model year starts (June, August, September, whatever) wouldn't that determination be reflected in the VIN? And wouldn't the year specified on the title be based on whatever that VIN is?

From my understanding of how this works (and I could be wrong) the VIN, the title, and the year the manufacturer is using to identify the car must be consistent with one another.

jfr0317

My understanding is the same as yours, Mike.

Sonnen Porsche

Porsches model year policy makes little sense. Last March we got in a 2013 Panamera GTS... This March we got in a 2014 Cayenne Turbo S. The 918 Spyder was originally in my configurator as a 2014... It just changed to a 2015... The 991 Turbo cabs should be 2015 models but currently they are showing in my internal builder as a 2014 model. The GT3 should all be 2014 models next year but of course Porsche could change that at will. The 991 should have been a 2013 model but it came out as a 2012 for 5 months which pissed off a lot of folks...