Porsche cutting output of Carrera GT, won't bring final 200-plus cars alotted to U.S. market

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS
Posted Date: 8/10/05

Porsche won't bring in the final 200-plus Carrera GT supercars planned for the United States - and, surprisingly, dealers couldn't be happier.

"I'm thrilled," says Jerry Nelson, owner of Schneider + Nelson Porsche in West Long Branch, N.J. "From the beginning I thought there were too many being built."

Porsche says the $440,000 car won't meet 2006-model requirements for smart airbags, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wouldn't grant a waiver.

"It's a business decision," a Porsche spokesman says. "The cost of engineering the two-stage airbags and recrashing the cars just to make them model-year 2006 cars just doesn't make sense."

Porsche is cutting total output of Carrera GTs to 1,250 units, from 1,500. Most of the 250 dropped units would have gone to the United States, the spokesman says. Since the Carrera GT went into production in January 2004, 396 have been sold in the United States through July.

Dealers say keeping the numbers down will help keep values high.

Nelson says Porsche initially told dealers it would build only 1,000 and charge $399,000. "We let that word get out to our customers, but then the number went up to 1,500 and $440,000," he says.

Many prospects view the car "as an investment," Nelson says, and asked why Porsche was building so many Carrera GTs, when Ferrari usually only makes 400 or so when it has a limited-edition car.