ISUK:

Nick,

The basic fact in my experience is that most buyers do not even know that the Exclusive department exists or that there is an option called Paint To Sample. The majority of dealers don't actively promote it either as it delays delivery and presumably brings little added benefit to them in terms of additional profit versus the additional time required to manage the process. The factory add to this by not offering it on a year round basis but instead have a window for this type of work.

There are a few dealerships who seem to actively order in cars for stock in Paint To Sample or with a host of Exclusive trim finishes. The dealer in Glasgow, Scotland for instance has had a whole host of Boxster and Cayman models in the last year or so as showroom display in vibrant colours like Gulf Orange, Mexico Blue, Viper Green, Fashion Grey etc and sold them without difficulty thereby proving that there is customer demand. There is an US dealership which also orders interesting cars as the sales guy there likes trying out different things. He appears to sell them with ease as well. If you have an interest in PTS or Exclusive it is well worth checking out Eduardo's thread "Custom Ordering a 991, 'Porsche Exclusive' and You!" over on Rennlist.

Here for example is the choice of stitching thread colours potentially available to customers through Exclusive (photo courtesy of Eduardo). I bet you never dreamt there was such a wide choice potentially available nor will your dealer most likely.

Stitching colours 3.JPG

There is also a list of 62...yes you read that correctly 62..... leather to sample colours available. I'm betting that very few people on Rennteam who are more knowledgeable about Porsche than the average customer are even aware of that  

It is therefore very easy in theory to create your dream Porsche if you had a favourite leather colour from the 964 series for example and wanted to match it to an exterior colour from the 993. Perhaps you'd like your new 981 spyder in the launch colours of the Carrera GT - GT Silver with Ascot leather. That is available on the current approved lists for both paint and leather.

Just a quick note to clarify a small but important point.  That photo from my thread on 'Custom Ordering a 991' over at Rennlist (  http://rennlist.com/forums/991/708507-custom-ordering-a-991-porsche-exclusive-and-you.html) was taken in 2012 from 'props' taken to the Porsche Parade in Salt Lake City by then manager of 'Porsche Exclusive' in the US - Sascha Glaeser.  The fact is (and I learned this the hard way) that although the synthetic threads in these wide array of colors you see in the photo are available from the manufacturer/supplier, Porsche doesn't have many of these colors approved for their own interior as deviated stitching.  So for example, we currently have no bright 'green' deviated stitching available for the 991/981.  We have no bright 'blue' deviated stitching either. Bright 'Green' deviated stitching was available most recently as an offering on the .1 997 gt3 RS...but never offered on the 991/981 on any model.   Bright 'Blue' was offered briefly at the beginning of the current model production and we saw it on a very few custom early 981 Boxsters...then it was stopped being offered.  A bright 'Orange' deviated stitching was offered also on the .1 997 era gt3 RS, but never in the 991.  But because 'Amber Orange' stitching was offered on the 981 from start, custom 991 orders could be requested in this 'weaker' orange color since the color thread had already been tested & approved for seating and panel work (dash, door, etc) by Porsche.  That is still the only 'Orange-looking' deviated stitching you could get right now...regardless the many beautiful shades of 'orange' synthetic material threads seen in that 'wide world of colors' photo.  'Acid Green' was briefly available as deviating stitching at beginning of 991 production (since it was offered in some special '918 Spyder' Limited Edition 911 for 918 customers), but it was soon stopped too.  In fact, one of the most famous 'demonstrator' for 'Porsche Exclusive', a ''Lichtgrün / Birch Green' 991S Cabriolet I photographed extensively at Zuffenhausen on my visit in 2013, didn't even have the seats done in the 'acid green' deviated stitching found elsewhere on that full leather interior vehicle simply because the production engineers had found weakness with the type of thread used for the seats on all 991/981 and stopped temporarily the ability of anyone (including themselves for a special 'Porsche Exclusive' show car) to get deviating stitching on seats!  Canadian customer JUPJAI recently was delivered a beautiful 'Lichtgrün' 911 Turbo S cabriolet custom order.  But he couldn't get PAG to approved any special deviating thread for his 'Espresso' leather interior.  So he ended up with 'Racing Yellow', which worked well because 'Lichtgrün' has so much yellow and 'Racing Yellow' itself has a bit of green tint.  But for others ordering a 'Signal Green', 'Viper', 'Pure Green', 'grün', we don't have many options for coordinating our interiors with deviating stitching in the non-GT cars. 

So that picture we are discussing on this post is a bit misleading, even if supplied to us by Porsche as a 'prop' to show us the wonderful (albeit an imaginary) world of 'Porsche Exclusive' options.  The fact is that material testing (e.g. type of synthetic threads used for deviating stitching for heavily used seats) is rigorous at any auto manufacturer, but particular selective at Porsche.  If a deviating thread fails, it's an expensive warranty item for Porsche that might eat up their whole calculated profit on building & selling that particular car.  So they are very careful.  But from a design point of view, 'Porsche Exclusive' has to do more for us (the custom order enthusiasts) in pushing the process along so that more colors are a possibility as interior deviating stitching options to coordinate with the long list of colors available to us via PTS.  

And yes, there appears at present to be 62 different leathers available via 'Leather to Sample'.  But hardly anyone bothers for reasons that we don't have time to discuss at present.  

Saludos, Eduardo (still somewhat jet lagged and up at 5 am in Franconia)

Leather to sample 8.10.2014.pdf