[onewhippedpuppy]

Porsche has been working their way up market for a few years now. Look at all the special edition and GT cars that were invite only, or required you to purchase additional vehicles to “qualify” for a purchase spot. It’s all straight out of the Ferrari playbook, and frankly turns my stomach. I always enjoyed the Porsche community as a bunch of fellow car guys, many of which turned their own wrenches and enjoyed customizing and modifying their cars. I think that demographic is slowly being weeded out of the community by continuously rising costs, being replaced by the see and be seen class that would rather put their classic 911 on display behind glass than take it on a road trip. As Paul said, I’m glad to have enjoyed the fun times….

One other note for all the German automakers, you’ll never win in China. The model is well defined, China will seduce you with a huge domestic market and low labor costs, entice you to invest billions to build product in country, steal your IP, build a competing product at a dramatically lower price, push you out of China, then take over the plants that were built at private expense. I saw it happen in aerospace over 20 years ago, you’d think these idiots would learn.