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100 posts into my Rennlist career and I finally get to provide some first-hand experience with MY car!
I took delivery of my C2S cabriolet last week at the Atlanta Porsche Experience Center. It is everything you've heard about, but part of me was a little disappointed with the experience, so hopefully I can set some expectations for anyone considering doing the same.
The Good:
First class setup.
Good people.
A nice meal.
Plenty of build-up and your car is prepared and presented fantastically.
Track time is, as you would expect, a phenomenal part of the day. You get a good sense of how to handle a car similar to yours on a tight circuit, on a skid pad, and on the infamous kick-plate.
The Not So Good:
Total track time for me was just under an hour. You're supposed to have 90 minutes, so I lost out on 30 minutes there, but even at 90 minutes, it could be more. Perhaps broken into two sessions, one for the actual track and another for the skid pad & kick plate. Perhaps even mix in other cars as a sales opportunity.
Lunch. The food was better than average, but of my half day at PEC, a full two hours was allocated for lunch. I ended up going alone for reasons I'll explain later, but 2 hours for lunch is painful even if I had company. It's especially painful because it was the first thing I did when I arrived ... before track time and before seeing my car! It's one thing to build anticipation, it's another to milk it.
While there was too much time at lunch, there wasn't enough for the retail store and museum. I was told to stay at my lunch table until I was picked up. In hindsight, I should've just left lunch and browsed the museum and/or retail. (When I was picked up, we did go to both of these places, but it was more of a tour. At that point, the faster I finished the tour the faster I could see my car).
Product knowledge/familiarity. This was really surprising. I expected the reps there to know the ins and outs of these cars even better than my local salesperson. This wasn't the case. I'll chalk it up to the PEC being new, but they did have 88 deliveries prior to mine.
Did I have a good time at my PEC delivery? Absolutely. Nice people everywhere and they did their best to make me feel appreciated. They accommodated me when kidney stones prevented me from taking my originally scheduled delivery. (I was literally driving to Atlanta when kidney pain made me abort that first attempt).
My suggestion would be to have a better indication of what is important to an individual before they arrive. I would've taken a 20 minute lunch if it meant that time I gave up was spent literally anywhere else at PEC. As far as Performance Center deliveries go, Porsche has some work to do to catch up to BMW.
Enough negative, since it still was a positive experience overall. Here are some pictures, some from PEC employees and a few from my phone.
After waiting to make the decision, waiting to place the order, to get a build date, for the ship to arrive in Jacksonville, and for the delivery date to be set, the anticipation was brutal by this point!
This mural contains the autographs of all PEC deliveries since they opened earlier this year.
Just the tip.
Enjoying the Georgia sunshine.
The black/bordeaux interior is perfect for this car. And yes, there are three pedals you see!
A nice touch, a windshield sticker commemorating my PEC delivery number.
Is PEC close to the airport? Yes. No one complains about the track noise, though.
I've done the BMW performance delivery and they put you up in hotel with dinner, breakfast and then to the track, lunch and then you get your car around 2-3pm. Since you did lunch first, is it like 12-5pm? Is it possible to get there in the morning and check out museum/retail beforehand? Thanks for the info, I'm definitely doing this in the spring.
My view for two hours. A tease? Yes. But unfortunately it must've been lunch break for the instructors, too, because there was almost no action to watch.
A nice little restaurant and a reserved table.
When you have an extended lunch, you get dessert. Cinnamon donut holes and cappuccino ice cream.
Looking straight up at this piece of art hanging from the ceiling.
Some quality on display.
Porsche tried to sell me a hybrid while I was there. If I wanted a Prius, I'd go to Toyota. ;-)
The best looking car there, besides mine. A 356 SC GT from 1964.
Congrats! Looking forward to seeing in Charlotte. Check out Cars and Cappuccino in Southpark. I'll be in the mountains this weekend so no Cars and Coffee for me this month :/
My view for two hours. A tease? Yes. But unfortunately it must've been lunch break for the instructors, too, because there was almost no action to watch.
This is what PEC instructors do during their lunch break; I had front row seats:
1. When you pick up your car at the PEC, do you then have to provide transportation to your dealer where you purchased the car?
2. Do you have the option to complete all of the paperwork at the PEC and just take a road trip back to where you live in another state and not have to go back to your dealer?
I think you should be thankful you even had the experience. When I had my car delivered it wasn't an option at that time. I had to pay for my PEC experience (though it was a blast driving 3 manual cars incl. a gt4 to top it off!)
It all seems a bit too "elitist " to me (not meaning to offend) but the track part seems like it would be fun. Personally, I think I'd skip the delivery show and just book a track time class at some point in the future. Sounds like you enjoyed it though (mostly).
1. When you pick up your car at the PEC, do you then have to provide transportation to your dealer where you purchased the car?
2. Do you have the option to complete all of the paperwork at the PEC and just take a road trip back to where you live in another state and not have to go back to your dealer?
Yes you have to provide transportation back home, wherever that is. In my case, I drove it home. So yes, you do it all at PEC and don't need to go back to your home dealer if you don't want to. In my case I did so that they could complete my DMV paperwork but that could've been done via mail or by yourself if you purchased from an out of state dealer. I almost went that route because I initially got a much better deal from an out of state dealer.
09-28-2016, 06:43 PM
Atlanta PEC Delivery #89
