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Porsche
Club of America
Out
In The Passing Lane
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 Porsche
is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of the 911 by offering
owners the opportunity to share their personal 911 stories on PCNA's web
site. Readers and story authors will be asked to rate the various submittals
and "prizes" will be awarded. I expect a rather wide assortment of experiences
will be offered for consideration, some tragic, some humorous, and some
no doubt in poor taste. Should make for some entertaining reading at any
rate!
I no sooner confess that I might have been wrong about the Cayenne's potential market, when I learn that sales might not be all that strong over the next months. Apparently dealer inventories are building as potential buyers opt not to purchase off the lot, but instead prefer to special order (only to learn that some options are not yet available). Porsche apparently pre built a lot of Cayenne's that are still waiting to find buyers. Meantime Boxster sales are well off previous year's sales, and even the 996 is selling at rates slower than last year. The slow economy is apparently starting to really cut into Porsche's overall business. Production is being cut back in Germany to adjust inventories, rather than offer buyer incentives to move cars off dealer lots. I have the cure for Porsche's sales softness, offer the new Carrera GT at prices normal buyers can afford. At $440,000 each they will not sell many, but at say $150,000 I bet they could sell a lot them! They'd probably lose significant money on each sale, but they'd have plenty of happy customers. Ford would have a tough time selling their new version of the GT40 (an interesting and attractive new offering) if buyers could get Porsche's latest hot car for similar dollars. I know, wishful thinking on my part - what business wants sales without profit! While Porsche's business is softening, Harley Davidson is selling lots of motorcycles. Their business set a sales record in the second quarter with sales up 14% versus last year. I guess we baby boomers are opting for two wheels instead of four! Audi meanwhile is building a stable of really high performance cars. I was already lusting for a RS6 Coupe or the new S4, when I read in Autoweek that they're going to build a RS4. All three of these four door coupes have 400 or more horsepower, making them really fast go to work cars or grocery getters. Porsche needs to up the ante on their Boxsters and 996s to make sure they retain their performance advantage. Buyers will not want to pay premium prices for cars that don't perform any better than four-door coupes. I've not ranted about the state automobile inspection process for a number of months, but since the program has been in the news lately it's fair game again. Were any of you surprised to learn that the testing procedure was not accomplishing the desired lowering of problem automobile emissions (as defined by the Feds and environmental groups)? Seems the software program that runs behind the equipment was modified to relax the failure rates. Everyone involved pleads some form of innocence, and vow to correct the problem with the software to increase failure rates. So who was complaining about the lower failure rates? Testing facilities that also do repairs on failed vehicles were one group of complainers. They noticed a decrease in their repair business, but initially couldn't come up with a good explanation. The state had apparently promised them a return on their testing equipment investment that wasn't being realized. I hadn't noted anyone complaining about air quality to any significant degree, but once word leaked out about the software modifications our air quality was suddenly much worse in some minds. Who might have benefited from the change, probably owners of some marginal vehicles that were vocal about the repair cost burden they were struggling to cover financially. I might be off base, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that someone got to someone and suggested strongly that a relaxing of the failure rate might help him or her with his or her constituency. There is still big money motorsport sponsorship to be had even in a down economy. Today Budweiser committed to a 5 1/2 year $80 million dollar sponsorship of the Williams BMW F1 team. Anheuser Busch is making a major commitment to a series that still hasn't found a large audience in the US, but is huge everywhere else. Europeans in particular are certainly going to get more buy Bud messages over the next few years. I wonder if this will increase fan interest in the US, and will it also lead to a US racer finding a seat in the series. With F1 adding races in China, the Middle East, potentially Russia, and just announced possibly India, Anheuser Busch is obviously looking to gain visibility in these large markets. Involvement with the hugely popular F1 racing series is probably a smart long-term investment. Eighty million will probably turn out to be chump change for them! I also wonder what the implications are for NASCAR. Anheuser Busch puts lots of money into that series, which maybe will be rethought. I bet the France family started asking for clarification and long-term commitment from Anheuser Busch as soon as the new sponsorship was announced. I may have to start drinking Bud, to thank them for their new investment. NASCAR did announce that the SAFER barrier system would be installed at NHIS after the July race. That suggests that the safer wall system will be in place prior to NER's September driver education event. That's good news for region DE participants I think. I was never all that comfortable on the oval portions of that track, always thinking about the consequences of hitting the wall. We're off to Mosport next week for three days of on track entertainment. Hopefully the weather will be better in Canada than it was for our region's event at Mont-Tremblant. It's a long way to travel if the weather doesn't cooperate. Last year we lost lots of track time to heavy rain, and ended up coming home early on Sunday. I think Susana got in only a couple of runs all weekend, bummer! |
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