Quote:
nberry said:
Jeff, this much I know. I am not the only one that feels Porsche as a company is now a mass marketer which has had a negative impacted on it's customer base.
One person (you) does not a customer base make. Also, define "mass marketer". As I've already posted before, in Snob Diego, I mean San Diego, Ferrari's, Lambo's, P-Cars, etc. are WAY more 'common' than in other parts of the world. In places like Monaco, you would have to drive something like a Pagani Zonda to stand out from the more "plebian" 575 Maranello or 430 because there are so many in that area. But does having a concentration of cars in a particular area of the world suddenly diminish the intrinic goodness of a car? When I see 300 Ferrari's at the Monterey Historic races, should I suddenly feel that they're not so special because there are so many in one place? "Mass market" - when you're making 100,000 vehicles across 3 different lines (Cayenne, Boxster, Carrera) for the entire world in a year as Porsche does, how is that mass market when Toyota sells 400,000 Camry's in the US ALONE?!?
Nick, I better understand your need to drive a Ferrari - you NEED to stand out from the rest of the world and have people notice you. You already said that you nixed the carbon brakes from your F430 order because no one would be able to tell the difference from the steel brakes to justify the $15K that they cost. Well, unlike you, I and many others buy a car and select the options because it's what WE want. Ferrari owners are seem obsessed about getting a car that the NEXT guy will want - which makes sense because you have to sell a new car back to the dealer fairly quickly after taking delivery so that the dealer can make another big profit selling it to the next guy. That means that you HAVE to have a red Ferrari because that's the easiest one to resell. To each his own but in the meantime, please reread my earlier posting - you won't change my mind about Porsches and for your sanity, I hope you can let your negative experience go and move on by voting with your wallet (i.e. don't buy another Porsche). That's what NORMAL people do. FYI - the average person who has a positive experience with a product will tell 2 people; the average person who has a negative experience with a product will tell 11 people. Given how many negative postings you've put on this board alone, you're off the scale of normality/average. Again I ask, how often do you call your ex-girlfriend's husband to tell him what a mistake he's made by marrying her?
Lastly, let me go to the trouble of including the quote from the Autoweek F430 article that you neglected to include in your posting...."Granted, the 911 S cabrio hits an entirely separate price point at $88,900, is the king of its braket, and it could be argued, many higher brackets too." I'd like to see Ferrari design and build a car as competent as the 911 and have to sell it for what the 911 sells for. I don't think they could do it and even if they could, people like you probably wouldn't want it because you're more interested in exclusivity than the vehicle's other attributes. To each his own.
and so true! 
My comments would not affect you as much. 
