While many enthusiasts purchase Porsche cars for the thrill of driving, there are also some people who buy them as an investment where the second-hand market has proven to be a gold mine for owners of certain Porsche models especially GT cars.
During an interview with Car & Driver, Andreas Preuninger, Porsche’s head of GT road-car development expressed his frustration that many of his limited edition models are snapped up by ‘car flippers’ who just want to make a quick profit, “I personally like to see my cars being used. That’s what we build them for. They are just too good to be left to stand and collect dust.”
“I don’t like this business of people buying our cars to make money on them. That was never our intention. The purpose of limiting a car is not for it to gain value. We don’t want to be laying money on each car’s roof when they run out of the factory.”
Preuninger also admitted that the decision to offer a manual transmission in the new GT3 has caused some unhappy customers of the manual-only 911R, who fear their cars will lose some of the exclusivity that has propelled their values skyward.
“When I said we’re not a hedge fund, I’m talking to those people who are yelling at us for offering the manual transmission similar to the R,” he said. “But if there are people wanting to buy cars like that, then as a company we should try to fulfill that, to meet that demand.”
While it’s difficult to prevent buyers from selling cars for a profit, the German automaker will closely monitor customer who are more likely to flip a new Porsche for profit. These people is far less likely will be able to buy one of Porsche’s limited-production GT specials in the future.
“We are monitoring very closely who is flipping cars,” he said. “We do not build too many cars and we know most of our customers well—we like to have a name for every car before we build it.
“If you’re flipping cars, then I think it’s understandable that you won’t get on the list for the next car if we have more demand than supply,” Preuninger concluded. “It’s not a punishment but a strategy: to supply the cars to the customers who will really use them. I think that’s just fair.” (Spot on! Nice one Porsche- Ed)
Source: Car & Driver
