fritz:

Rotbart wrote:
"Now I've been reading a lot of the Porsche related threads on this forum for quite some time and there are two things that I can read out of a lot of posts here.
Number one: Porsche seems to do things right from a financial point of view by creating extra demand with a rumored to be strictly limited GT3 RS and now the actually limited production 911 R and it turns out this works perfectly, as people are always keen to own something special.

Number two though is that I get the imagination, that regular (non motorsports) Porsches are no longer good enough, so Porsche therefore seems to do something wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong - it seems like the car a lot of you want is the combination of a daily driver and a weekend fun car, as RC calls it and for that purpose the motorsports cars are too hardcore, yet the regular Carreras (and Turbos) aren't involving enough anymore. For me this is the very spot where I see a GTS model, if not a complyingly specced Carrera S. Sadly not having been able to drive a Porsche yet, I cannot imagine this is only because of the turbo engines and the different accoustics compared to a N/A engine.

So I'd like to hear your oppinions: what is it that AP and the motorsports department do better than their Stuttgart colleagues?"


fritz wrote:
You have to keep in mind that the opinions you read on sites like Rennteam are those of real car enthusiasts, who might not be entirely representative of typical mainstream buyers  -  even of sports cars like Porsches. The suggestion that "regular Porsches are no longer good enough" is not supported by the sales figures of those models, which are as good as or better than they have ever been.
 
The fact that cars generally are not as "involving" as they used to be has as much to do with traffic and road conditions as with the cars, and with the fact that these conditions are forcing drivers to expect cars to be "low maintenance" in terms of their involvement and inputs during daily commutes or routine journeys. 

Porsche recognised this and has produced sportier variants of its base models to try to satisfy the wants of more enthusiastic buyers while still selling large enough numbers of cars to remain viable as a manufacturer. (For the sake of this discussion we can ignore the fact that Porsche was absorbed into the VW Group for reasons which had nothing to do with Porsche's product range). The success of the GT models in the last 17 years has probably surprised Porsche as much as it has anyone else. 

The GT variants of the 911 and now the Cayman build up on the foundation of the base versions of those models. Without good, well developed base models the GT versions would also be unlikely to be as good or as successful as they are. The GT variants come to market some time after the base versions because of the fact that the base version has to be thoroughly developed and tested before work on the sportier variant can be sensibly started. It's not so much a question of the Motorsports department doing its work better than the series-model platform group, its just that the Motorsports department is allowed the freedom of developing more extreme variants on the basis of the bread-and-butter models which are better suited to the expectations of the more enthusiastic buyers who are prepared to pay more for them, which in turn can justify building smaller runs. 

FWIW, the development work on the base models is also done at the R&D Centre in Weissach, within the same perimeter fence as the Motorsports department. All the cars are then assembled at the main factory in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. 

 

Excellent point Fritz.  To put a cap on it, consider a few of my colleagues at work who drive Porsches.  One has a Carrera PDK, very much doubt he has ever taken the car to redline.  Likes the looks, things it's a fast car (even though never exceeds 5k rpm), finds it comfortable for daily use.  Prestige.  Same for one of my female colleagues.  Two others drive Panameras...last thing on their mind is taking a curve fast.  

Heck, there are even big car nuts that would not drive GT-series cars for various reasons.  No back seats, manual only, wing on the back, too stiff suspension, etc.  So still need the standard line of cars.