Fastfishracing
Well-known member
- Joined
- 15 Nov 2014
- Messages
- 67
911 R April fool
Well 'Porsche increases 911 production' had to be too good to be true, right?
On April 1 2016 reported the following story...
Porsche's decision to limit the 911 R to just 991 units for only its most loyal and committed customers seems to have annoyed quite a lot of people. To the extent a good number of them are complaining loudly about not being able to hand over £140K for a manual 911 with no stereo and some stripes.
The shockwaves of this online anger seem to have registered in Stuttgart though. And in a surprise move Porsche has today confirmed it is ditching its entire Carrera, Cabriolet, Targa and Turbo ranges to focus on building more 911 Rs. Any customer with an existing order for a 911 of any type will receive a free upgrade to an R, the economies of scale brought by this step-up in production meaning they can all be sold for the current £76,412 starting price of a base Carrera.
Clearly this will upset those who've bet the farm on the previously £140K, limited production R netting them a healthy return six months down the line when they sell it back to their Official Porsche Centre. Collateral damage Porsche seemingly accepts.
"The strength of feeling from those who said they would absolutely, definitely buy a 911 R if only their dealer would let them surprised us all," admitted a spokesman. "Clearly our previous business model of selling vast numbers of hugely profitable SUVs, saloons and 911s optioned up at massive margins with embossed headrests and colour coded keys was completely mistaken. As a result production of all Panamera, Macan, Cayenne and non-R 911 variants will cease with immediate effect, freeing up capacity to satisfy this very obvious demand for a back to basics 911 true to our brand's historic traditions."
Having invested heavily in technology like PDK transmissions and turbocharged engines for the second generation 991, and devoted all of its considerable engineering and marketing expertise into making the 911 appeal to as wide a range of potential customers as possible, this does seem a surprising move. But there is method to the apparent madness. "After reading the feedback we realised, however, what people really want is a noisy, unrefined, high-revving 911 that is really quite difficult to drive in traffic but will also scare the hell out of you if you try to drive it fast on a track," said our spokesman. "OK, the profit on a car with motorsport technology and a titanium exhaust as standard isn't as good as platform based cars like the Macan or Cayenne, where development costs are shared across three or more brands. And, for sure, we sold 80,000 Macans and a further 73,119 Cayennes last year. But given the fuss over the 911 R we are convinced we can easily exceed these numbers by streamlining the product range to just this model and appealing solely to our traditionalist market."
911R for the price of a base Carrera. I'll take 2.