Nizer

From Blowdog.com blog:

"A few months back, I received a survey request from Porsche relating specifically to the next gen 997 GT3. Normally, surveys go straight in the bin, but in this instance I relished the idea of being part of the demographic that helped shape the future of the GT3. The questions were specifically aimed at current owners and its intention was to guage the direction of the car; should it be softer and more compliant, or should the car be even more focused as a track car?"

A number of other attendees referenced receiving this survey and I'm just curious whether anything similar was sent to US GT3 owners?

Adam2S

No they made a point of saying in the feedback session that only the UK and German markets had been surveyed. They only had 200 reponses back too so a pretty small sample IMHO.

Nizer

Confirms my view that Porsche continues to treat its single largest market (US) like second class citizens.

911rox

I think it would have more to do that the US dot requirements prevent many options from being offered in your market. They probably feel that its not worthwhile to ask you what you'd like in a car if the regulations will prevent them from fulfilling requests. As their biggest market, I doubt they would consider the US market as second class....

Maybe the US regulators need to relax with DOT regs where high end cars are concerned....

Nizer

Maybe. Then again they could release new cars to their largest market first, which they don't. They could have offered a sunroof delete on the Gen1 997 GT3, which they didn't. They could have offered a variation of the Clubsport Pkg, ex-the roll bar, to the US rather than making all the customers that wanted to track their cars retrofit everything, which they didn't. I could go on....

NJ-GT

I'll be so scared if Porsche ever decided to run that survey here in U.S.

We would end up with GT3 Cabriolets with Tiptronic.

tcsracing1

Nizer

If they surveyed 911 Cab and Cayenne owners....

Adam2S

In fairness they did address this. They said that the reason they had only asked the UK and German owners was becuase they were the markets most likely to track their cars. They said that although the US market was far bigger a much larger number of owners bought their cars just for the road than in the UK and Germany and they wanted the GT3 to remain focused as a track car and so this is why they surveyed these markets only.

Not sure if thats the truth or just some spin that PCGB put on the whole presentation to butter up the egos of the people attending?

GrantG

Compare the price we pay in the US compared to other markets (we pay fewer dollars than the Germans pay Euros) and then complain about being a 2nd Class citizen

As long as we pay "Coach Fare", I'm happy to have someone else treated with more respect that's sitting in First Class...

Nizer

The higher prices paid by Europeans don't go into Porsche's pockets, they go into government coffers of respective countries in the form of taxes and tariffs. Contrary to what some may think Porsche makes excellent margins in the US.

911rox

Not entirely true... I would be speccing 2 GT3s in the US for the 1 I'm speccing in Aus....

Yes we pay higher taxes but Porsche also make a killing. Our MSRP here in Aus is $280k (US$ 224k) of which $75k is tax (US$60k). That makes cost of car US$164k less a dealer margin of say 10-15%.... US$145k ... You pay $112k (less taxes and dealer cut)= maybe US$90k .... Thats over US$50k EXTRA profit for a car supplied to Aus...

I'm with GrantG, better a second class citizen for the bargains you get....

Nizer

You're forgetting things like higher cost to ship cars to Aus, higher overhead per car to support dealership network, marketing, SG&A, etc, etc. The US generates more profit for Porsche than any other country.

Nugget

MSRP does not include taxes in the US. All the taxes and municipal fees are additive, not contained in the MSRP.

911rox

Possibly but that would be on turnover, not margin per vehicle...

As for costs for Porsche, I'm not sure on what this sets them back but we have less than 10 dealers nationally, the cars sell themselves so they aren't heavily marketed and as for shipping- you live half way around the world clockwise for Porsche, we're half way around the world the other way... not sure if they play a part in actually supporting the dealers???? I can't see that the overheads per car are high enough to justify US$ 50k+ per car ....