I guess I am kind of late to this thread but I will put in my 2 cents

Some here knew me on another board, I had a 918 on order and I had chronicled the experience there.

Last March I was in the market looking for a CGT, my dealer found me a very good condition one in April, I was within a day of pulling the trigger when i causally mentioned how about their 918 allocation. I was told I was #2 on the list and they had 3 allocations. Right that second I gave up the CGT and jumped head first onto the 918. The CGT is really nothing special after some serious brain storming. It's just another internal combustion engine power car with a mid engine rear wheel drive layout. Ferrari had a million of those and Lamborghini had one of those mid engine V10 since 2003. That wood shift **** is especially out of place in a super car. Plus, the CGT is just a savage operation from Porsche to recoup some money from a failed racing program. It's a dead end car.

918 ticks all the hyper car boxes, mega HP, awd to put the power down, cutting edge technology, fastest car around the ring, etc, you name it it has it, what's not to like especially it will carry the legendary reliability of Porsche?

Between then and now, the 8 months in between, Porsche had wined and dined me, kept me updated regularly, not from regular channel but personal emails from Porsche Car Canada President/CEO. Initially I had a late 2014/early 2015 build date but since then something else happened and I had moved up to a Feb 2014, this month, build date.

I was heavily courted by McLaren to buy a P1, like and email a week. I had hold an allocation for one from March till this past December. I gave it up before this past Christmas. Yet last week I got another email detailing McLaren North America had 2 P1 cancellations and they are asking if any potential buyer would like to take them up. P1 selling out is a myth. I had a 12C for over a year, and since the P1 is just a 12C on steroid, why should I bother?

For those that wish Porsche would make a 918 sans hybrid and 500lb lighter. Why? There is no challenge, Porsche would learn nothing build just another IC super car, heck, if they want to they have enough parts in the warehouse to slap one up in a week. The 918 is like the 959, ground breaking technology tour de force, it's a statement of what Porsche can do if they want to. The 991 Turbo S today can still be traced back to the 959.

As for the 'investment' value, buy a car is never a wise monetary investment. The odd Ferrari that sells for 20mil is an exception, not the rule. If one worries about the depreciation even before they take possession of a 918, then he/she is stretching their financial health in the first place to buy one. A hyper car is a toy, nothing more.

 

Are you for real?

 

Dude, do you even know the history of the Carrera GT?

Reading my post, you should know I was going to buy one, and I would have researched and dig up everything about that car before I would lay down 400 large one.

The Carrera GT engine was a dead end project from 2 failed racing programs. Porsche savaged the developmental cost by build a concept car as a show car then got surprising interest and they build the damn thing.

It was never aligned with Porsche's production cars, nothing on the Carrera GT was transferred to anything else. That's called a dead end project.

The fact that it was quite a good sports car, not a great one because of the damn clutch, does't changed the fact that the Carrera GT is technically an outcast. It was never aligned with Porsche's production cars, nothing on the Carrera GT was transferred to anything else. That's called a dead end project.

The Carrera GT was never a technological advanced project, Nothing on it was cutting edge. Porsche's engineers didn't learn anything new building it apart from the the challenge of using a carbon monocoque.

Well at least now it does contribute a partial silhouette to the 918.

I call things as I see it, I never sugar coat ****. I am a Porsche guy through and through though. As a child I had 959 posters, not F40s.

You may and can see things differently than me. But I get to where i am today by seeing things that may not be apparent to others.

 

 

Was that other board 6speed? If so,I can see where you're coming from...




If that's what you think here's to another dead end project :




Apparently it's completely new,shares some " nuts and bolts " and a " heavily reworked Panamera PDK flipped upside down ".


If the Carrera GT is a " failed project " ,I'd like to see what happens when Porsche actually succeeds...

 

Yummy! Wanna pass the popcorn? This might take a while......




@neanicu:

What tech from the Carrera GT has been pass down to other Porsche products? None. That's why it's called a dead end project, it served no benefits to Porsche.

959 explored the twin turbo set up, now every Turbo since has been twin turbo-ed. It also pioneered the awd system in 911s. Now every generation since has it.

The rear wheel steering from the 918 is already in used in the GT3 and Turbo/Turbo S, the hybrid system, a simplified version, is also in the Panamera e-hybrid. The 3D effect tail lights has already show up on the Macan. Who knows what else will be pass down to the next generations of Porsche cars. The new PCM? Or light weight technology invented for the 918 like forged carbon? Galvanized carbon?

 

Ok,the 959 was a brilliant technological achievement at that time,although Porsche LOST money on every single one they've sold! Yet it became a classic,a collectors car.
The same thing will happen with the Carrera GT,mark my words!

 

Hmmmhh.

Get the popcorn indeed.

This is heresy for some Porsche fans/Rennlisters. Lol

Full disclosure: I to loved the 959 as a youth as well Whoopsy.

Congrats on your updated 918 order by the way.

The beauty is; I think the 918 is a combination of the two vehicles. I've said this before.

The 959 was a great car. However, it was built off a 911 platform, so there for it couldn't compete with the F40 as an all out drivers vehicle, according to many pundits at the time (not that it had to be, or that was it's sole purpose).

Nonetheless, it has stood the time, as an all time vehicle in Porsche and Auto history, indeed.

Now, the 918 (despite it's technology) was built from the ground up. Therefore, Porsche could incorporate everything they needed to make the car handle and accelerate as fast as they wanted, and whatever else desired (note: the low center of gravity, low packaging of heaviest internals, 4WS, etc.), that despite the 959's cost (a reported $500,000 per vehicle), Porsche had to work around. So in a way, it's not a direct comparison (though people like to make it), cause the 918 is not as handicapped to start with as the 959 (at least against the highest competition). Of course, all cars are compromises. However, the 918 seems to incorporate the least amount of compromises, for a vehicle that hit so hard in so many total and divergent areas (looks, performance, handling, power, acceleration, traction, economy, usability, technology, interior detailing and conveniences, etc.). The list goes on.

So the beauty is: The 918 could/would complement a 959 or Carrera GT, but at the same time, it's a nice stand alone/first time[purchase] all around Hyper Car on it's own.

Note: I get your point on the 918's technological push. I've said many of those things myself in the past on why it should be built, and against it's competitors. But at the same time, the Carrera GT for many, is the epoch of analog, visceral feel. Some people want, like, and long for that (as you know).

Enjoy your vehicle. And I hope you really do get it that soon in Feb. Let us know of course (on this or any other site).

PS: Didn't the Carrera GT's light weight carbon fiber seats get passed down to some GT 911's? Lol

 

Still advanced enough to have Porsche supposedly filing 75 patents for the CGT for it's development, which is not bad going for a technological dinosaur which also manages to be 'quite a good sports car' too I reckon...

 

I am a die hard Porsche fan, but I don't look at things through tinted glasses.

Carrera GT is a great car all by itself, but it doesn't serve as a major milestone on Porsche's product time line like the 959 and now the 918. Yet it can be celebrated as the 'be different' Porsche car, and that's one of the reason I want to acquire one in the first place. I still do, but I just didn't rank it higher than a 959, 918. I also didn't drink the KoolAid journalists give out, best analog sports car? McLaren F1 bar none.

As for appreciation/depreciation, Porsche were never good investment if one desire appreciation. 959 didn't start appreciating until the US passed the Show and Display law so they can be legally imported to the USA. With only around 300 in the world, and the US market starved for so long, of course it will appreciate.

Carrera GT and the 918 will be a different story. Both are sold in the North America and with a significant number sold here, appreciation is not a certainty. But there will be a floor to the depreciation as they are still numbered collector cars. When I decided on the 918, I didn't treat it as a investment, it's nice if it appreciate but the whole point was to buy a 'boyhood poster car'. Some boy somewhere on Earth right now will have a 918 poster on the wall or as their screen wallpaper and dream about owning one, I am just glad I am lucky enough to be able to afford such a poster car as my own 2 poster cars, a 959 and a F1, are next to impossible to buy.

 

I agree with the premise of your argument but not with the conclusion. Yes, the CGT was a deadend vehicle but that's a big part of the attraction in my view. As cars gradually turn into mere tansportation appliances - incredibly efficient and reliable but as exciting as a fridge or a coffee maker - it's the abberations within that trend, the cars that are way out there and probably didn't make sense to build that are the most interesting. I think the parallel between the 959 and the F40 is very telling here. The 959 was indeed a "ground breaking technological tour de force" but it was too damn sensible, too practical! Porsche might have lost money on every single 959 it sold but it was still a car it needed to make to develop new technology and propel itself forward. The F40, on the other hand, was the ultimate dead end car (when was the last time Ferrari put a turbo V8 in a road car???). It doesn't make sense in any practical terms, it's way out there but that's precisely why people a drawn to it. I think most enthusiasts respect the 959 and lust for the F40. I think Porsche has always been too rational to build anyhting like the F40. The failed racing programs that you are referring to are a happy accident that allowed Porsche to make its own F40 - the CGT.

 

Don't necessarily think it is a matter of rose tinted glasses for those speaking up for the GT. The CGT was after all never meant to be a tech showcase like the 959 or 918 now. The design brief if I remember correctly was to deliver the ultimate race car experience for the road. In that I dare say Porsche have succeeded brilliantly. The CGT doesn't sit as a major milestone in the Porsche product line but is all the better for it in it's own way and IMO is the last of it's era of the analog supercars that will likely ever be made.

Do agree that the Mclaren F1 stands above the CGT as the ultimate example of the analog sports car and is the car above all else I would like to have. That being said the F1 is not without some of it's own quirks from what I have read/heard....

 

If I remember correctly, the CGT introduced the PCCB for all Porsche cars, the seats are used in the 997 GT3 clubsport models, the carbon fiber chassis is used as the test mule for the 918 spyder (it could also be the basis for the 918 chassis though I'm sure Porsche will deny it). Also the interior layout with the raised central tunnel inspired all later models from the panamera to the 991 to the 918. Frank Walliser was the lead engineer for the panamera hybrid and adopted what he learned from it to the 918. The CGT is as much a parts bin car as the 918 and the 918 is as much a deadend car as the CGT.

 

Lol Who in the world would want a car that was based on a racecar? All I know is that my CGT is the greatest car I have ever driven or owned. The price of the CGT's have gone up quite a bit in the last year so I guess I am not alone in my opinion. I have little desire for a 918 and from the sales of the vehicle so far it seems my opinion is also shared by others.

If you are looking for the most technically advanced car perhaps the 918 will fit your bill. In my opinion in 50 years the CGT will be more desirable but only time will tell.

 

I can't afford one, but if I could, a concern I would have is that the 918 is first
generation hybrid technology. The technology is almost certain to get better and and possibly cheaper going forward. Competition may be a factor in driving prices down. Tesla is already selling a significant number of cars and will put pressure on Porsche and BMW etc with their $100k price point.
Will this happen in the hyper car range? I don't know, but it would give me
pause.