George from MD

and the "what's wrong with Porsche's new cars" discussion I thought I'd post this from the folks at Autoextremist.com. They're giving Porsche the big 3 arrows down for the upcoming year:

Porsche. After rolling in the huge dough for quite a few years now, Porsche is poised to take a real hit to their "sky is the limit" vision of their future in 2002. And for two very big reasons: 1. Besides the excellent Boxster (which they've saturated the market with and are finding out the hard way that it's not a good idea to do that), they've managed to alienate their long-term customers by taking the 911 too far away from its original concept - which is to be a pure sports car. Does anyone remember the theme "Driving In Its Purest Form?" Not anyone left at Porsche, apparently. Each time they take the 911 another step closer to being more of a boulevardier, they're finding out that there are just too many good cars of that type available out there now - and Porsche can't effectively compete against them. So, instead they **** off their customers, while not being appealing enough to the market they want to play in - a costly double-negative any way you look at it. And 2. Instead of working on getting Porsches that are real Porsches but are somewhat affordable to their True Believer customers (who can afford a Carrera GT or a 911 Turbo GT2 after all?), they're coming out with an $65,000 luxury-performance SUV. We've seen auto companies blinded by their own arrogance before - throughout the industry's history as a matter of fact - but Porsche takes the cake this time, and by the time they wake up and realize what they've done - it will be too late.

Cupcar

George this post is lonely out here on page 2! Yes, Porsche has abandoned their traditional sales foundation before. The 928 was supposed to replace the 911 when Fuhrman was in charge and developement was arrested for years on the 911. Schutz saw the error in this and redeveloped the 911 to his credit. Over the years I have seen the company become very successful, their success paralleling the economic trends of the USA. When successful the company becomes smug and pats itself on the back, decides they don't need the gearheads, and then goes begging as they did in the early 90's when the economy went south. At times like then we get RS cars etc. as they beg for sales from the gearheads who are always there for them. Then sales go up as the ecomomy improves and things like RS cars stop. They think they can do better than just build 911's. Porsche is smug right now, things will change.

George from MD

Agreed! I recall buying a 944S2 (my first P-car) in 1990 at almost $20,000 off the list price.

Please see perverse 2 post.

mpm '95 C4

Porsche has put the whole firm at risk, and Fred keeps smiling. At least he got his teeth fixed...