nberry:
unotaz:
I accept your logic to a certain point. However, If you believe AP, he is building the car because of the Porsche enthusiast demand for it. Yet, he only builds 991 knowing that between the 918 owners and the VIP's of Porsche they will take most if not all the allocations. So why market the car to all the poor souls who have been lobbying for it and cannot qualify to buy it?
Porsche can and probably will build more R's. They have the capacity, resources and production schedules to meet the demand. They choose not to build more because as I stated above there is no point to the car. It is not designed for track, has mediocre performance and yet equipped with 500hp for "street driving". Good luck with that.
There is nothing like the GT director of Porsche claiming a car is the purist driving car, limiting its production and selling it at a high premium over other Porsche model. It sends Porsche diehards into a tizzy and would mortgage their homes to get one. Porsche knows its customer base and is not ashamed to take advantage of it.
First and foremost, AP works for Porsche and he is both a great salesman and a head of development for Porsche Motorsport. He is there is create the hype and drive up the demand for Porsche GT cars.
Having said that, the 911R was created as a passion project. Nothing more than that. Hence, the development period was so short and the budget allocated for this project is much smaller than the other "regular" GT variants (eg. GT3RS, GT2RS). AP felt there was a niche for this particular "purists" segment of the market and I think he is right on the money!
As for why they only created a limited edition 911R for "only" 991 luck owners? It's very simple. First, to give back to the loyal 918 customers who dished out close to $918 million dollars to the Porsche bank, at a time when there were a lot of skeptics on the 918 project and wrote off the Porsche hypercar. (Lucky for people like me, we believed in Porsche and the 918 and it paid off greatly! Not only we got a spectacular car, but the value appreciated and we got awarded with this VIP program). Second, is to drive up the "desirability" of the "purists concept 911" so that when they do release a mass produce 991.2 variant, everyone will go crazy and buy into it. It's actually quite brilliant of a marketing strategy if you think about it. Third, the 911R is based on the 911.1 platform, which is already being phased out. Porsche doesn't want to keep making the 991.1 platform for any longer than they have to.
Lastly, when Porsche creates another million dollar plus hypercar down the line, how many people do you think will now jump on board and buy whatever Porsche comes out with? I bet you there will be heck of a lot more with people (in the US at least) now after having witnessed how the VIP program truly works for the 918 customers.
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2016 911 R (Incoming), 2016 911 GT3RS (Incoming), 2016 Boxster Spyder
2015 911 Turbo S, 2015 918 Spyder Weissach, 2015 Panamera GTS
2008 Cayenne Turbo, 2007 911 Turbo S, 1973 Datsun 240Z FuguZ