911_50 Euro Delivery Experience
05-03-2014, 01:41 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
911_50 Euro Delivery Experience
Well, it is now only one day until my wife and I leave for Europe to pick up our 911_50 at the factory in Leipzig.
For me, this is a dream come true - doing the European Delivery - it is something I have thought about since teenage years, looking at the ads in the usual car magazines and imagining being able to drive on the autobahn, through the alpine passes, the Black Forest, and all the other exciting places these cars were made for.
What makes it even more dream-like is the car with which I am able to do this: a pretty special edition of the iconic 911.
A big "Thank You" to our dealership and the staff who have helped make this possible - Porsche Centre Victoria, Matt, Tyson, and Paul, but especially to Matt Kennard, the best sales advisor we have ever dealt with.
I will (be trying to!) update this thread as we travel to Leipzig in a few days, go through the delivery experience and enjoy the track time, then start our trip around the Continent. I hope you will share the excitement with us!
Cheers,
Martin
For me, this is a dream come true - doing the European Delivery - it is something I have thought about since teenage years, looking at the ads in the usual car magazines and imagining being able to drive on the autobahn, through the alpine passes, the Black Forest, and all the other exciting places these cars were made for.
What makes it even more dream-like is the car with which I am able to do this: a pretty special edition of the iconic 911.
A big "Thank You" to our dealership and the staff who have helped make this possible - Porsche Centre Victoria, Matt, Tyson, and Paul, but especially to Matt Kennard, the best sales advisor we have ever dealt with.
I will (be trying to!) update this thread as we travel to Leipzig in a few days, go through the delivery experience and enjoy the track time, then start our trip around the Continent. I hope you will share the excitement with us!
Cheers,
Martin
05-03-2014, 01:49 PM
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05-03-2014, 02:07 PM
#3
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Don't worry about updating this thread until you are back home in Victoria! Go drive the living snot out of that 50th and savor the time doing so...
05-03-2014, 02:53 PM
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05-08-2014, 12:49 PM
#12
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Thread Starter
The Delivery!
So here we are, finally in Leipzig to meet our new baby, also known as 911_50 Ltd Ed Nr 1656.
We arrived yesterday from London, flying into Berlin and then train to Leipzig. The Euro Delivery includes a night at a local hotel, and we chose the Steigenberger Grand Hotel Handelshof. The name is quite descriptive - a grand old hotel in the European sense, but completely renovated to modern standards, located in the heart of old town Leipzig.
Our day started with an hour on the track accompanied by a Porsche driving instructor. For our use we had a 991 C2S with PDK, sport design front clip and ducktail at rear; one neat feature of our car was the sport bucket seats, not available in NA at this time. For those that don't know, the track was designed with corners representing many famous tracks from around the world, so there is the Corkscrew from Laguna Seca, the Bus Stop from Spa-Francorchamps, the Esses from Suzuka, etc. We had only 2km of the 4+ to use, as part of the track is being used to road test all the cars being built at the factory (every vehicle built here goes for a test drive on the track, whereas at Stuttgart, only randomly chosen cars are driven, and then it is only on city streets). After an hour on the track we got to spend some time in a Cayenne going around the off-road course; it is amazing what a Cayenne can do (and the Macan is not that far behind in capability as well); according to our instructor, only 3% of customers ever take their Cayenne off-road!
Next up was the delivery itself, but I will come back to that later.
After meeting the car, then we had a tour of the factory. The Panamera bodies arrive from Hanover, and the Cayennes from Bratislava; the newly built body and paint shops at Leipzig build only the Macans from scratch. The Macans and Panameras have their interiors installed here, but the Cayennes come with theirs already installed. The final assembly includes the joining of the engine to the chassis (the "engagement"), followed by the body to the chassis/driveline (the "marriage"). The factory is incredibly clean, remarkably quiet (the lawnmower outside after the tour was noisier than the factory floor), and everybody we saw was pleasant and extremely professional. I was interested to see the cars coming along the line in random order - a Macan or two followed by a Panamera followed by several Cayennes, etc. The just-in-time assembly process allows them to bring components in at the last minute to the assembly point, with the car being built getting components specific to that car on a trolley; no warehouse full of parts to pick and choose (so if you change your mind at the last minute and decide you wanted the Sport Design steering wheel, you are out of luck, as the component manufacturer would have to build one and deliver it to the assembly line a few hours later, all the other cars backed up waiting for your last minute change of mind - LOL).
After the factory tour, it is off to the restaurant on the fourth floor of the customer centre, a delicious 3-course lunch provided for you, and a quick tour around the mezzanine where a selection of vehicles is displayed. Unfortunately, no 918's were around today!
I will post in a little while about meeting our car, when I have had a chance to go through pix to post along with it.
We arrived yesterday from London, flying into Berlin and then train to Leipzig. The Euro Delivery includes a night at a local hotel, and we chose the Steigenberger Grand Hotel Handelshof. The name is quite descriptive - a grand old hotel in the European sense, but completely renovated to modern standards, located in the heart of old town Leipzig.
Our day started with an hour on the track accompanied by a Porsche driving instructor. For our use we had a 991 C2S with PDK, sport design front clip and ducktail at rear; one neat feature of our car was the sport bucket seats, not available in NA at this time. For those that don't know, the track was designed with corners representing many famous tracks from around the world, so there is the Corkscrew from Laguna Seca, the Bus Stop from Spa-Francorchamps, the Esses from Suzuka, etc. We had only 2km of the 4+ to use, as part of the track is being used to road test all the cars being built at the factory (every vehicle built here goes for a test drive on the track, whereas at Stuttgart, only randomly chosen cars are driven, and then it is only on city streets). After an hour on the track we got to spend some time in a Cayenne going around the off-road course; it is amazing what a Cayenne can do (and the Macan is not that far behind in capability as well); according to our instructor, only 3% of customers ever take their Cayenne off-road!
Next up was the delivery itself, but I will come back to that later.
After meeting the car, then we had a tour of the factory. The Panamera bodies arrive from Hanover, and the Cayennes from Bratislava; the newly built body and paint shops at Leipzig build only the Macans from scratch. The Macans and Panameras have their interiors installed here, but the Cayennes come with theirs already installed. The final assembly includes the joining of the engine to the chassis (the "engagement"), followed by the body to the chassis/driveline (the "marriage"). The factory is incredibly clean, remarkably quiet (the lawnmower outside after the tour was noisier than the factory floor), and everybody we saw was pleasant and extremely professional. I was interested to see the cars coming along the line in random order - a Macan or two followed by a Panamera followed by several Cayennes, etc. The just-in-time assembly process allows them to bring components in at the last minute to the assembly point, with the car being built getting components specific to that car on a trolley; no warehouse full of parts to pick and choose (so if you change your mind at the last minute and decide you wanted the Sport Design steering wheel, you are out of luck, as the component manufacturer would have to build one and deliver it to the assembly line a few hours later, all the other cars backed up waiting for your last minute change of mind - LOL).
After the factory tour, it is off to the restaurant on the fourth floor of the customer centre, a delicious 3-course lunch provided for you, and a quick tour around the mezzanine where a selection of vehicles is displayed. Unfortunately, no 918's were around today!
I will post in a little while about meeting our car, when I have had a chance to go through pix to post along with it.