Inside the Dealership: A candid talk with Porsche Hunt Valley's General Manager
Porsche Club Insider
Inside the Dealership: A candid talk with Porsche Hunt Valley's General Manager
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Brand
Porsche
Porsche is a German car company famous for high-performance sports cars. This conversation is about how Porsche is planning ahead, especially through its dealerships.
Company
Pirelli
Pirelli is an Italian tire manufacturer and a major supplier to performance car brands. The sponsor message highlights that Pirelli designs tires for performance, safety, noise reduction, and grip.
Term
VIN
VIN is your car’s unique ID number. It helps websites and dealerships find the exact details of your specific Porsche.
Concept
Reputation is mostly based on online review and review sentiment
They’re saying the dealership’s reputation is judged mostly by what customers write online. “Sentiment” just means whether those reviews sound happy or unhappy.
Brand
Facebook is another place where customers can leave feedback about a dealership. Some ranking systems count it a lot.
Brand
Google is one of the biggest places people leave ratings for businesses. Dealership ranking systems often count Google reviews heavily.
Brand
Yelp
Yelp is a website where people review businesses. The GM is surprised that Yelp reviews can affect how dealerships are ranked.
Concept
one star to five stars
People rate their experience with stars, from one (worst) to five (best). A low rating can make the dealership look bad quickly to new customers.
Car
Saturn Vue
The Saturn Vue is an SUV that people could buy years ago. In the podcast, it’s mentioned in a context about handling customer reviews and parts-related websites. It’s not really being discussed as a sports car—more as a vehicle that parts and support might be associated with.
Concept
service area
That’s the part of the dealership where cars go in for service—like maintenance and repairs. It’s where the technicians work on the cars before they’re ready to be picked up.
Concept
shop foreman
The shop foreman is basically the lead person in the repair shop. They help organize the work so technicians know what to do and the cars get fixed right.
Term
tire storage
Tire storage is a service where customers leave sets of tires with the dealership for later pickup. This is especially common for seasonal tire setups (e.g., switching between street and track tires or summer/winter tires).
Term
winter tires
Winter tires are tires made to work better in cold weather. They grip the road better when it’s snowing or icy, compared to regular tires.
Concept
technical bulletins
These are manufacturer updates that tell the dealership about known problems and the right way to repair them.
Term
manual transmission
A manual transmission is the kind where you use a clutch and shift gears yourself. The dealer says they were being pushed to order more of these because they seemed to work well for their customers.
Car
Porsche Boxster
The Porsche Boxster is a two-seat sports car with the engine in the back part of the car. It’s made for driving feel and handling, not just straight-line speed. The podcast is talking about a specific higher-performance version (GTS) that someone ordered but didn’t end up taking.
Term
PDK
PDK is Porsche’s dual-clutch automatic gearbox. It shifts fast and keeps the car feeling lively, but it can feel different from a manual because you’re not directly controlling the gear changes.
Term
Tiptronic
Tiptronic is Porsche’s automatic transmission that also lets you shift like a manual. The speaker is saying it didn’t feel as engaging to them as PDK.
Term
autocrossing
Autocross is a timed driving event on a cone-marked course. They’re saying for that kind of driving, they prefer PDK because it can help the car stay in the right power/gear range.
Concept
Sport or Sport Plus
Sport modes make the car feel more aggressive. They usually change how quickly the transmission shifts and how the car responds when you press the gas.
Concept
EV
EV means electric vehicle. Instead of burning gasoline, it runs on electricity stored in a battery.
Concept
EVs
EVs are cars that run on electricity stored in a battery. They don’t use gasoline like most cars do, and the GM is explaining how customer demand for them has been different than expected.
Term
build quality
Build quality refers to how well a vehicle is assembled—fit and finish, materials, panel alignment, and how solid it feels. The GM says some customers are converting from other EVs because they recognize Porsche’s build quality as superior.
Car
Porsche Macan
The Porsche Macan is Porsche’s smaller SUV. They’re talking about how rules and technology requirements can vary by country, and how that changes what buyers expect when they pay Macan-level prices.
Concept
Macan EV
Macan EV means the electric version of the Porsche Macan. They’re saying that if people would try it, they’d probably like how it drives.
Car
leaf
“Leaf” refers to the Nissan Leaf, one of the most common mass-market EVs. The GM is using it as an example of an EV someone might have driven, to understand whether their dislike is based on experience or assumptions.
Term
all season tires
All-season tires are a compromise tire meant for many weather conditions. The GM is saying you don’t necessarily need super-special track tires to have fun.
Concept
battery maintenance
Battery maintenance is the worry that owning a hybrid means extra work or extra problems with the battery later. The speaker is about to explain whether that fear is justified.
Car
LaFerrari
The Ferrari LaFerrari is a supercar that uses hybrid power. The speaker’s point is that Ferrari still lets the car’s performance be the focus instead of putting hybrid branding everywhere.
Concept
CPO as a closing tool
This is about using “we can certify it” as a sales tactic. The point is that certification should only happen if the car actually qualifies, not just to help close a deal.
Concept
PCA
PCA is the Porsche Club of America. It’s a Porsche fan organization that hosts events and sends out updates for members.
LIVE
Welcome to the Porsche Club Insider, your one stop for all things Porsche and PCA.
Here's your host, Vu Gwin, and the Insider Crew.
Welcome everyone to Episode 212.
Lately we've been talking a lot about Porsche's strategies going forward and all of their current
challenges.
Today's guests hopefully will hear about how they're preparing sort of at the dealer
level and what's the landscape for them today and into the future.
To my right I have Manny Albin, Damon's at the controls, and returning guests, Porsche
of Hunt Valley, General Manager Steve Postal.
Welcome back my friends.
Pleasure to be here.
Had a big friend at PCA.
Absolutely.
I want to thank our presenting sponsor, Pirelli.
Pirelli tires have to achieve the highest levels of performance, safety, noiselessness
and grip on the road surface.
Innovative tires that can satisfy even the most specific mobility needs of the end consumer.
I want to thank you all for listening.
If you aren't currently a PCA member and own a Porsche, what are you waiting for?
Grab that VIN, head over to PCA.org and make yourself a member.
For those of you that are listening and you don't currently own a Porsche, we have the
Test Drive program that you can join again at PCA.org and we look forward to unlocking
resources to get that special Porsche for your driveway and or garage.
Alright, so first of all, I want to congratulate you.
You've got a lot of things going on, including a 2026 Reputation Excellence Award.
You watch things.
I do.
I think that's fourth year in a row.
Wow.
Third year in a row, we've been number one in our company, which is AutoNation and second
year in a row that I've actually seen the overall standings for the whole country for
auto dealers.
We were number 11 again.
Congratulations.
I can't even catch the Hendrick guys.
So whatever they're doing, they're doing right.
What's the criteria for that?
Reputation is mostly based on online review and review sentiment.
It's a very, very confusing metric to try to figure out because it's not just how many
reviews you get.
It's the spread of reviews that you get over different platforms like Google and Facebook,
which are the two that are the heaviest weighted, but they also take into consideration a site
that I never thought of for automotive reviews, which is Yelp.
I've never Yelped an automotive dealership.
Here's a Silver Star Platinum.
I know you are.
Here.
I am one of them, but I'm one of those extremists.
I put on that review when I'm really pleased or I'm really upset.
I don't usually take the time to write on things that are in the middle.
I used to be the same way, and then I probably just felt like I should stop doing that.
I started getting messages from people like, oh, suddenly you're a food critic.
Well, I mean, have you seen me?
I'm a food critic.
I'm a food critic.
So I was the same way, but we have taken a few years and really focused on making sure
that if people are having a good experience with us, that they're letting people know
about it.
And if they're not having a good experience with us, that we do something to change that.
And that's one of the keys to our reputation score is reacting to negative reviews and
trying to find a way to convert that customer back to a positive experience.
I take that personally.
I handle that task generally on my own, unless there's somebody in the store that has a specific
relationship with that client, and we've been successful at it.
That answers the question I was going to ask, because I wasn't naive to think that you were
just going to just do your daily thing and just happen to win that.
You have to actively manage it.
Yeah, and it's cumulative, and it goes throughout the year, so you have to get yourself up to
a certain point, and then you have to maintain it.
And it takes time.
If you get a negative review, it takes a couple of days for you to see the results of that
negative review.
If you get that negative review turned around, it takes even longer for it to reflect in your
score.
So it's one of the things that I monitor on a daily basis and try to make sure that if
there's an issue that we do something to address it.
What are the reviews or reasoning from positive or negative service or sales?
It's both sales, parts also.
Anybody who wants to review the dealership can review the dealership at any time.
It's Google's free site.
So you are subject to random reviews, both positive and negative.
People can just go on at any time and do or say whatever they want and give you anywhere
from one star to five stars.
That's got to be tough.
I see it from the restaurant level, and it could be just like their personal, whatever
vendetta that they have against a restaurant.
And you're like, oh, like you have no control over that.
And you try to remedy.
And just some people are just malicious, right?
Yeah, I had an interesting situation over the weekend with a service provider.
I don't want to get into too much detail, but we had a conversation that didn't go as
well as I think that person would have liked it to have gone.
And I didn't get the sense that he was equipped to be doing the job that he was doing.
And I was trying to prevent him from causing damage to a client's car.
And long story short, halfway through my Saturday, I get an alert for a negative review.
And this service provider left me a one star review on Google, but did it under a...
It wasn't the account of the service company that he was working for.
It was another account, and we did a little bit of diving.
Like my team jumped on it quick, and then while we figured out where this account was,
and then we looked at his account, it was nothing but one star reviews.
So he would hide behind this online presence and leave one star reviews with almost the
same language that he used for me.
So I made a couple of phone calls to the company that he works for who I've never heard back from.
And I also made a call to Porsche Roadside Assistance to take some action
and ask them why they would have a provider that would allow something like this to happen.
That review has disappeared. I don't know where it went.
I can't find it anymore, so I hope it doesn't come back.
But it is active. It requires very quick input.
And part of the difficulty is exactly what I was just saying.
You can't always figure out who it was that left the review.
Because we're a publicly held company, they also have specific policies about responding
to reviews. So if you had Vue's car parts, and you run your website, you run your Google account,
you're responsible for your reputation, you can respond directly to any review that you get.
And I have always read that that's almost more important than the review.
Your response is almost more important than the review because people are going to read
your response to the review and they want to see how you react to negative feedback or even positive
feedback because both are equally important to respond to. I can't do that. Somebody at a corporate
level sends a response. I happen to have a decent relationship or at least contact with that team.
So if there's something specific that I want them to say or offer, I'll shoot them an email
immediately. They'll review it. They'll make sure it meets standards. And look, the goal is,
for me always, to get somebody on the phone so that I can talk to them. So that we're not losing
tone and inflection in an email or a text message, that we can have a conversation about what happened,
they can see that I'm genuinely concerned about addressing their issue and making things right.
So aside from that, what else do you do during the week at the dealer?
You know, every day. That sounds like a full-time job.
Every day is a little different. But every day, for me, I try to start out the same. So I always
park in the service area. I always walk in through the shop. I make sure that I say good morning
to all the technicians that are there when I walk in and then I stop over with Kurt, our shop foreman
and just get the lay of the land for the shop for the day. It's important to me that those guys
feel supported and that they know that I'm involved in their portion and respect what they do for
the dealership because they do generate a lot of profit for the dealership. And those guys,
in some instances, tend to get lost because they're behind the scenes. You know, they're not
customer-facing. You just don't see them every day because they're kind of back to house.
But they're the elves in the back that are making things happen.
Yeah, they are. They are. And Kurt, who's our shop foreman, he and I have worked together since
day one. You know, when we bought the franchise, it was Kurt and another younger technician.
So he and I have worked together the longest. We're the two people that have been there since
the beginning. And we're close enough in age and have a similar mindset about working on cars.
And I think he respects some of the input that I have based on the experience that I've had over
the years, both with sometimes troubleshooting cars and things that are difficult and leading
his team into becoming much more like him, right? Because the goal is to have everybody kind of
come up to that level where they could do all of the things that he can do. So it's important to
me that they feel supported and that they know that I'm there for them. You know, they know
I have an open-door policy if they want to come down and talk to me about anything. Not that I
want to cut out the service manager, but it's important to me that everybody feels like they
have a seat at the table. Is there volume seasonal now that it's warming up and the driving seasons
come? Is there like a surge for get my car ready or is it? It's always seasonal. I think some of it
is get my car ready. We do track inspections. I don't want to say frequently, but reasonable amount
of track inspections. So we start to see more of those. We have a limited amount of tire storage
available. That's something that we decided to do a few years ago. And so we'll start to get people
right about now pulling their winter tires off. So they'll come in, get the tire swapped. We'll
do a multi-point inspection on their car, see if there's any issues that need to be addressed.
They see if they're close to any recommended services and go from there. So it's not just
dropping your car off and getting the tire swapped. We're actively looking for ways to help you
maintain your car properly. But it is definitely seasonal in this area. We definitely tend to
taper off a little bit in the winter months, even with the popularity of the four doors.
All right. So now that you've gone through the tech area, where do you head to next?
I go into the showroom downstairs, into my office, try to clear emails. Anything that I haven't
cleared in the short period of time that I kind of review things on my phone in the morning,
anything that I can clear off my phone that's not, doesn't require large reading or anything
like that. I'll try to clear that before I even leave the house, get to my desk and go through,
respond to any emails that I need to, and set myself up for the day. At that point, I start
looking into the sales schedule for the day. What appointments we have for the day,
who's in that morning, what leads came in overnight, make sure that they're getting
addressed very quickly in the morning. If a lead went to a salesperson, it's not going to be there
that day reassigning it to another salesperson, getting the sales staff set up so that when
they walk in, they can get to work and do what they need to do. So those leads, I'm assuming
they come over from the Porsche website or from your dealer website? Correct. Porsche website,
third-party websites. Okay. And it comes through and you're assigning it to folks.
Now, how often, roughly, what's the volume overnight?
Generally, we'll get a couple of leads overnight. Do people shop more Friday nights or Saturday nights?
Sunday night seems to be, Saturday night into Monday seems to be where we would get
a larger volume of leads. So on a Monday morning when I come in, I'll probably see
upwards of 10 to 12 leads that have come in over the weekend. Some of the sales staff will
attend to them on Sundays if they feel like it. I encourage people to balance their work life.
And so, look, if you want to be proactive and take some leads, they come in your name and
because quickly respond to people, usually the better success rate you have, then I welcome
to do that. I don't require it of them and I feel like I get better results with them
wanting to do it than having to do it. Right. Now, how about in your inbox,
how often are you being reached out to by Porsche cars North America and do you get
stuff directly from, let's say, AG, the mothership? Don't get much from the mothership. Porsche cars
manner of things, whether it's technical bulletins that are coming out, whether it's sales
programs, whether it's sales updates, whether it's auction updates, scheduling, marketing
updates. I get pinged quite a bit by various entities at Porsche cars North America and both
the sales service, the marketing side, basically from everybody. Once a month,
maybe a little bit more frequently lately, there'll be a letter from the CEO or the CEO
just an update on business or just most recently when they won JD Power again. They're very proud
of that, so they want to communicate and thank their team for being responsible for those results.
It's a good bit of communication that I get from them.
Now, is it your responsibility to look and order, I guess, the cars that are coming in?
Who does that? I share that responsibility with Steve St. Clair, the sales manager. He has
many more years of Porsche experience than I do. He has a different perspective coming from
different dealerships on how he built cars versus how we used to build cars and so we blend that
together, but I generally try to leave that to him. That's one of the things that I've tried
to relieve myself of. There's certain models that he prefers that I build, so he'll just,
I'm done here. These are yours. Let me know how it goes.
All right, I'm going to ask this one because it always comes up in cars and coffee
and amongst our friends and amongst our enthusiasts, what's your take on ordering a manual car?
Well, because I know you like manuals. At this point, my take doesn't matter because there's only
model available right now and we typically have those sold to somebody before they hit the dealership.
When 718 production was being ramped down or phased out, however you want to classify it,
for the last year and a half we were being encouraged to build those cars as manual transmission
cars, which I found interesting. I'm not sure that I ever really understood why,
but we were being encouraged to order them as manual transmission cars, which we typically did
a higher percentage of manual than PDK anyway because it always seemed to work for us in that car.
The interesting thing is when we got to the end of 718 production and all of a sudden
cars were starting to go away, all of a sudden PDKs were the cars that everybody was looking for.
Last year in the spring was the first time that I actually took a sports car as a demo.
It was a shark blue
GTS 4-liter Boxster that somebody had ordered and didn't take delivery of and it started to sit
and we weren't selling the car. So I said, you know, I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity
because I don't know when it's going to happen again. So, you know, the spring of last year
I got to drive a 4-liter manual Boxster GTS. But that car sat. Yeah. Crazy to think that.
Enthusiasts will say. That's what frustrates me when I hear people say,
Porsche needs to build a 718 again. And I say, but you weren't buying them when they were around.
I mean, I remember PC&A telling me that they had sold more Cayenne turbo GTs than Boxsters.
The stats don't lie. I mean, we can say all the different things we want as enthusiasts, but
at the end of the day, you have to be able to sell the car. And if you order it and it sits on your
floor, the manual car like Steve said, so that you can get the touring GT3 and manual and the
Carrera T. But I guess there are all allocations already spoken for by the time you get them,
right? You don't really. Yeah, I guess actually it's three models. So the touring the GT3 wing car
and the T that you can get in manuals. But I mean, as you would expect, touring is in GT3s don't
generally make it past the ordering process. We've had some Carrera T's that have gotten
towards the end before they locked for production, before we found a home for those cars. Very
surprising to me. But that's not typically the case. So at this point, it's not really an option.
When it becomes an option again, I know there's some talk of the Carrera S possibly being made
available in a manual. We'll visit that. But you I know there's a lot of people that clamber for
manuals. I enjoy driving a manual transmission car. But at this point, it is not the majority.
And so that's that's a difficult decision to make. Sometimes we'll take a look at the at the
market or even the country and see, OK, well, how many manuals are out there? You know, or how
many PDKs are out there if we've been ordering a lot of manuals? And we'll try to order something
that differentiates our car so that maybe somebody comes for that car, because it's the only one
around. So my question, actually, at this point is, is PDK underrated and manuals overrated?
Because the more I drive PDK transmission cars, even if it's a GT3 or the 4S, which is only PDK,
the less I feel the need. Like if I imagine myself in a situation where, you know, maybe 10 years
ago, it would have had to have been a manual. I don't really think that anymore. I would agree
with you. The cars have become so capable and so fast that having a manual transmission from a
performance perspective is a hindrance. Yeah, that's indisputable. Right. It's there. The numbers
don't lie, as you said before, right? Fuel economy used to be another reason why people would buy a
manual transmission car versus an automatic car. That's not the case anymore. So there really is
only one reason, or call it two, to buy a manual transmission car. And one of them is ego, right?
Because I say romance. The romance of shifting your own gears.
I never drive in sport mode. I always do my own rep matches. Correct. Right. So I call it the visceral
experience, right? The romance is the visceral experience. I get it. So to me, it actually
comes down to the car almost. I thought that the four-liter mid-engine car was the perfect car
to have a manual transmission car. I don't know that I would want one of those as a PDK because
ultimate performance is not necessarily what I'm looking for. While it's a very capable track car,
they have other cars that are more capable for the track. And to me, a mid-engine
is a back-road ripper. Something you get in on the weekends and kind of go out and cruise the best
time of year is either the spring or the fall when the leaves are turning colors. It's a little crisp,
right? Like the time that I had with the Boxster GTS, my Saturday morning drives to work were fantastic.
When you hold it in gear and keep the RPMs up high, it's not the most efficient thing,
but that soundtrack. You just keep it there. It's your choice. I totally get it.
And you feel it. You feel it through the car and you don't get that with the PDK.
But the flip side of that is you get into a 992, even a base Carrera at this point.
First gear is useless. Second gear is almost useless. And then you're into third gear. So if
that car were a manual transmission and you're trying to get the same visceral experience,
you're going to jail by the time you're starting to have fun. And I noticed that as far back as 997
Turbo, right? The last of the 997 Turbo's. I like the fact that that car was a manual. I thought
it was cool that that car was a manual. But again, the only time that you could really enjoy that car
was once you got into third gear and then you rolled into it. And at that point,
you're a triple digit speed. And that goes back to what Nathan was, why he enjoys his 997 Turbo.
He says it just matches the characteristic of that car very well. Yeah, I heard that.
I'm not sure I'm 100% in line with that. I've never, I thought the Tiptronic was really good
in comparison to other automatics at the time. I just never, I don't, I never really got that
experience. Like I guess because it's probably a little bit less mature the last time I drove
a Tiptronic on Turbo. And I just, I just never, it just never really, it never sat right with me.
Yeah, but the PDK, it's hard to argue. Other than that, like I said, the romance and the engagement
that you want and the quote unquote control. I always tell people, breaking the percentage is
how you drive. How much of a percentage of your driving is going to be pedal to the metal, full
RPM, twisty, and I bet you it's 5% or less. Oh, last year. And then the rest is getting to the
place you're going to drive for the twist. These are back home again. And so if you want a manual,
no problem. But know that you're not giving anything up going with the PDK. Now PDK and
Tiptronic, to me, that's a big difference. And depending on the car, my boxer is a Tiptronic.
I've learned to live with it. It's a cruiser. Autocrossing, what I want a PDK over Tiptronic,
absolute. But it's a great thing about PDK is that you're not giving up anything throughout
stick shift. Yeah, it's a top end transmission that more often than not, I just leave it alone,
the paddles alone and just put it on Sport or Sport Plus. And I remember at the trainings at
Barber Sport Driving School, I was trying to do the paddles and I realized, I cannot keep up with
how fast this car revs that I'm just going to let the computer go. That's exactly what I was going
to say. On track, it makes a better decision than most of us drivers. Yeah. And I've actually found
my sweet spot for PDK is in sport. I've never, even when we've done track events and things like
that. Plus, it's too aggressive. It is. It's overly aggressive and I don't, it's above my limits
of driving. Yeah. All right. Well, the questions are going to get, get tougher here, sir. It's
going to get tougher. It's going to get tougher, but we ask these tough questions because we feel
for you. We feel for you. And it's just two letters, EV. Okay. We know Porsche has kind of dealt with
a tough hand here. You know, some, some very innovative cars that have been coming out.
The, the, the landscape for how these are being accepted and how many they have to do,
what they changed in terms of forecasting. We kind of have talked about it from the global side and
from the mothership side, but what's it mean to you? It's been an interesting ride. You know,
if you go back to, to when Taycan was being introduced and, and was unveiled beautiful car,
but I was at the time not supportive of electric cars. You know, I shared the mindset of probably a
lot of people that they have no soul. They're, you know, computers on wheels, whatever you want to
use to describe them. And I was under the impression that, that this was going to be more like a
Panamera all-electric. And when the Taycan first arrived and I got to drive it initially,
I was blown away. And I was immediately bought into what they were doing because I realized what
they built was an electric 911 with four doors, not an electric Panamera. And if given the choice,
and I love the Panamera at the time, if given the choice for a daily driver between a Panamera
and a Taycan, I would take a Taycan every day, all day, twice on Sunday.
But I also recognize that adoption of EVs in general was not, I think, what a lot of people
had hoped it would be. And, you know, put politics aside and their views on whatever aside. I do
believe that it was forced upon us. And I don't know if that was the right way to go about things.
That's above my pay grade. I believe that there is a market and there is a client for EVs.
But I don't know that there was as many of them as had been hoped. And, you know, subsidies and,
you know, basically shoving things down people's throats, they don't always react really well
to that. And so it's definitely been a challenge. I am thankful that it seems though Porsche has
recognized that they do need to change course and whether it was through coincidence or
circumstance with the 718 platform kind of being on hold, I believe because of some battery issues,
that they've had to completely repivot there. And, you know, they've had to make some adjustments
in their forecasting and their production of the Macan EV and the Taycan EV. I'm thankful that they
finally made that choice. I'm not exactly sure who thought that we should just go full bore into
this technology and put all of our eggs in that basket again above my pay grade. But I believe
that, you know, they've recognized that and there's, you know, there's a price that's been paid for
now. So, you know, once the Taycan as well as the Macan EV and soon would be the Cayenne, right?
Are the majority of those customers, conquest customers coming from other brands or are they
customers that are currently in Porsches moving into the new technology?
I think it's probably been more of the latter really with a little bit of the former. Yeah, so
a lot of your EV clients are used to the appliance aspect of the car, right? And so
the technology that is available to a driver and a passenger and a lot of these other EVs is
probably above what Porsche is offering in some of their cars or at least they were for a while.
We've always focused on driving dynamics and chassis engineering and, you know, everything
kind of falls in place. And so the EV customer that we have come in the door has a different
expectation of what their car is going to do for them. And so there are some that, you know,
that we're converting from a different EV into our EV because they've driven it and they recognize
that it is very different and the build quality is superior to a lot of these other cars.
The flip side of that is we have a lot of clients that want to dip their toe in the
the electrification market. We have clients that were Porsche owners that did have electric cars
that said, hey, you know, it's kind of like the Panamera, the Cayenne, right? Like if I can have
my Porsche that does what I want it to do every day, then I want to do that and then I'll have
just one more Porsche in the garage. So it's been a mixed bag between the two, but I would probably
say it's been more Porsche clients going into EV than it has been Conquest. What was it like for
when you got the news that your best selling platform, the Macan, Macan Ice, right?
They were side by side with EVs for a while, which I think is probably the best of both worlds,
so then you can let your consumer choose. But then you probably got an email saying
that the ICE one's going away. Yeah, that that's going to hurt.
Have they given you a date yet when you can stop taking orders?
They haven't given us an official cut off date. Oh, really? I think it's like
second quarter this year. So I don't think, I guess the simple answer is I don't believe
there's going to be a 2027 model year Macan Ice and typically June is the end of current model
year production. So you can take that for what you will. It's probably sometime around June.
So we're definitely coming down the home stretch. The effects of that, I don't know,
will be felt right now, but they will be next year when we don't have that model available.
And it is a little bit disappointing. So I think maybe that's where I get a little bit of the
disappointed feeling in that there was no plan B. And to me, plan B can't be just continuing
the existing Macan either because I can't. Yeah. And it's been around for 10 plus years now with
some changes, right? Some chassis updates, some technology updates, some engine updates,
your typical Porsche evolution, not revolution, but you can only do that for so long.
Right. And also, they made those decisions probably at least two years ago. So all their
suppliers, all their, I mean, where they're going to build them, I mean, that's all was decided
years ago. They took a, took a chance, took a bet, and unfortunately it didn't land on them.
Yeah. You don't always win at the craps table. You know, but it's interesting that it sounds
like this is for US or North America and the production. But from what I understand, they're
still going to be making them in other markets that aren't as emerging markets as I think is
what they called it. So I think that depends on the market because part of the reason for
for what has happened is that the current Macan and the 718 both did not meet security standards
for connected for your technology for certain countries. So they, I think these emerging markets
are not, I read it as third world countries, right? Right. Okay. Don't have the laws that
Europe had or the US, I think what we run against, we just articulated is that at some point,
people are going to start comparing it to competitors who are evolving and going to say,
well, it doesn't have this, it doesn't have this, it doesn't have this. Esco's Porsche is still
building the same car that 20, 22 they came out with. Yeah. And, and, you know, prices continue
to creep up. And, you know, when you get to the price point of a Macan, even at this point,
you know, people have expectations. They have expectations. The car needs to have
certain things for that clientele to want to drive that car. And at some point, the,
the, the luster of just driving a Porsche and having that driving experience wears off. And,
you know, people will start to look elsewhere. And that's, that's what we don't want. The shame
is that if more people would be willing to take the leap into Macan EV, it's a way better car
to drive. Oh yeah. It is, it's to me, it's, it reminds me of, you know, my GTIs back in the
day, right? It's just a hot hatch does everything really, really well. You can pile stuff in it.
It's got enough of the modern technology and the assistance features that people want. You can
turn them off. You can drive it like a Porsche. The maintenance is like almost nil. The look of
the car is spectacular. It would, I would like to see more people be willing to take that leap
of faith because I think that they would appreciate it if they did. That's what I, that's what I
always ask everybody that comes to me and says, I don't like EVs. The first thing I ask them is,
have you driven one? Which one have you driven? Have you driven like a leaf or have you driven
a Porsche, a Taycan or a Macan EV? There's a difference, you know? So with the, with the three
models going away, the three ICE models going away, did you see a surge of, you know, customers
coming in trying to get, you know, the last of the, when they initially announced that it was going
away before they did the soft pivot to the side by side, we had a difficult time filling demand for
GTS. Everybody wanted the GTS at that point in time. That tapered off a little bit once the
side by side message came out, but we still, most of our Macan GTS are sold before they hit the
dealership. We have one or two that come in not sold every now and again. It's been a long time.
I think we might have one that's at the port now that is not spoken for, but other than that,
it's been a long time since we did. The four-cylinder Macan never really got a big rush
of people that had to have one of those before they went away, and Macan S kind of falls right
in between. So not like, quite frankly, I didn't see it for the mid-engine car either,
which is where I really expected to see it. You know, again, the boxer that I got to drive,
it was a complete surprise to me that that car was around for a long order for me to even consider
it because everybody knew that they were going away. And to me, that there's a little bit more
sold to a sports car than there is to an SUV, and there's a little bit more of a love affair and
a romance. And so I expected a bigger rush for that, not so much for Macan.
What I said, what's awaiting this right now for 911?
Which one would you like, sir?
We have a few models, sir.
You walk in and say I want to buy a T. Is there a weightless anymore?
I think we're down to a very narrow, if any, weightless for a T. I don't have an allocation
that's not spoken for, but I don't know that I have somebody write this very moment looking for
an allocation. But I'm glad that you asked that question, because if you want a GTS product,
if you want a 911 GTS product, please call me.
The hybrid one?
Yeah, really?
Please call me. I've got two company cars sitting on my showroom floor.
I have Targa allocations available in GTS. I think I've got a Carrera S available.
I've got a base Carrera that's built and on the way here that's not spoken for.
I have a base Carrera on the showroom floor. So the shift of years for getting any 911
has definitely come about, and so we have had a few 911s come in that did not have homes
that weren't spoken for.
Is that the effects of extra capacity because they're not making the 17s?
I don't know that we've gotten to that point yet. That's what we've been told will eventually
happen, and they're hoping to offset some of the lost capacity or the lost revenue of the
models that are going away with some additional 911 allocation, but I haven't seen that yet.
So Fu, you might consider a GTS. I heard a local hot shoe in Autocross had a good time on
all season tires.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah. I think Potomac's Autocross. So maybe you just need a hybrid powertrain.
Is the reason you have some GTS is available because of the hybrid powertrain or people
worry of that, or is that something to do with that?
I think that based on what I hear from a lot of people, they have concern about this hybrid
technology. And again, this is something that I found over the years to be prevalent in the
Porsche community, and I'm not really sure that I understand why.
A lot of misinformation out there, I believe right now, too.
All I got to say is drive one, and I can say that because we've driven one, and it's freaking...
It's not a praise hybrid.
The battery is not a EV battery. It's a very small battery that they use for the hybrid.
I think for most people, if I was to peel the side decals on the door and gave you the keys to
drive it, you wouldn't even know that it's battery-powered. It is just...
It's a phenomenal car. It is, as is almost always the case, better than the generation before,
in almost every measure. It just has that word that has that connotation that people seem to be
a little bit leery of.
I'm going to say something that most people yell at me for, but I would say for the street,
I would say a GTST hybrid is better than a GT3.
A GTS has always been the right choice for 90% of the people that walk through the door that
ask for a GT3. Back in the mid-2015, 2016, when the frenzy really started where there were
ADMs and lines of people looking for GT3s, and everybody felt like they had to have a GT3,
and the FOMO was rich with that car, we had GTSs, and we would convert people into GTSs,
because if you sat down and you talked to them for a little while and if they were honest with
themselves, it's way beyond what they needed. Look, there were GT3s that got sold that came
back because people finally acknowledged, like, this is probably a little bit too much for the
street, and you were right. I like a GTS. Well, then fast forward into 2020, and up until recently,
you couldn't get a GTS. I had a two-year list for GTSs. Some of those orders didn't get filled
when the DOT2 came out with the T-Hybrid technology, and a lot of those people said,
now, I'm going to pass. I had some people that did four Ss instead of it.
If there is an allocation or a GTST hybrid in your area that's available, I think that's a score.
But if there's not one in your area, you can call me.
There you go. And the thing is, people, I think people, as they start driving them,
will start realizing how incredible that car is, and then you'll be going,
oh, I remember that when those cars were available and they were sitting on lots.
So I have something to say about the hybrid and the battery, and I said,
Mr. Information is floating around. I wonder, so if somebody, and I'm guessing, I'm assuming here
that people are worried about battery maintenance and plugging it in or whatever, is it not that?
You know, there may be some of that. It's image. It's image. And look, over the last couple of
years, people have gotten really spoiled by being able to buy a car and drive it for three years
or two years and turn around and sell it at almost no loss if not in some cases a profit.
And all of a sudden, everybody became, not everybody, a lot of people became speculators.
And so all of a sudden, it wasn't buying a car to drive the car and enjoy the car,
which is what it was meant to be anyway. It's a lot of speculation. And so that's part of the
conversation. Well, what do you think is the hybrid technology? How's it going to affect the
value of this vehicle moving forward? Yeah, and a GTS was always sort of a GT3 light in a lot of
ways. I mean, maybe not the all-wheel drive ones quite as much, but it was basically you had the
handling. You had all the things the GT3 had, but dialed back maybe to an eight out of 10 instead
of a nine or a 10 out of 10. It's a completely different sort of car now. And I wonder,
is that the image? It's just literally, it's not GT3 light. Well, look, I think you can say
that about 992 in general and almost every generation of 911 as it's gotten a little bit
bigger and the wheelbase has gotten a little longer, that it's definitely shifted more towards
a grand touring car than it was, you know, in the longhood period or the G-body period or,
you know, 964, 993, even 997, which I think a lot of people believe is like peak 911 at this point.
Six guys call the 65 911 a GT car. So, I think you can say that about all the cars,
but what you can't say is that the performance doesn't get better regardless of the car getting
bigger. The times get lower, the speeds get faster, the power gets higher. And at this point, if you
haven't driven a GTS, you probably shouldn't pass judgment on a GTS. I think we've all driven one,
not super hard, but a couple full throttles and it's a great car. Listen, Porsche did a training
last year in Charlotte at the 10 tenths club and it wasn't meant to be a launch or training for the
GTS, but they had GTS product there for track driving experience and, I mean, that car blew me away,
blew me away. And not just the power delivery, which I expected, right, because some people
complain about lag in the turbocharged cars, that is not existent in the current GTS,
with this technology that they've got going on. But the thing that really probably surprised me the
most was I think the car sounds better. I think the single turbo design produces a little bit of
that classic 911 sound that has maybe gone away a little bit over the generations of the cars,
because turbochargers naturally quiet down a car to begin with, but that large single turbo design
to me just, it sounds better. And I mean, the power delivery is just
instant, ungodly. The best thing Porsche could do is take the T hybrid sticker off the car
and stop pushing this T hybrid like it's a magic pill they found. Just leave it as a GTS.
I feel like it's like, remember those Denali's that used to have hybrid on the side, on the back,
on the fender and everything? Or the California open access for the H.O.V. Lane sticker?
Prius, I have to tell them. You cannot drive electric only on a GTS. It's not that kind of
hybrid. And the crazy thing is, it's like the one car, the one sticker that you can't remove
is a factory option. Yeah, that's what I mean. They got to get, it's like an Le Mans hybrid,
like the 963. It's not the Prius hybrid everyone thinks it is. Calling it T hybrid versus E hybrid
was a good attempt, but I'm not really sure. I love my German friends, but I swear when they name
stuff in English, they need some help. They should call us. They should call us. We could
assist. Free assistance. It's interesting because I think almost all of the sports car manufacturers
at this point, most of their models, and in particular the hybrid performance models,
are all hybrid technology. As far back as 918, which they did advertise it as being an E hybrid,
but LaFerrari was hybrid technology. Ferrari is still using hybrid technology in a lot of
their cars. They don't badge it and stick it all over the car, and they don't really speak about
it a whole lot. And look, I think there's some of that same romanticism with the Ferrari crowd,
that when they went from normally aspirated to turbo, the sky is falling, and now there's
hybrid technology, the sky is imploding, but people are still buying them. And I think that maybe,
let's lay off the branding a little bit and just let the car speak for itself.
The performance and the characteristics of the car. All right, one more question about
something that you have no control over. Okay. How are things with regards to tariffs?
I haven't heard a ton of grumbling about tariffs since they were first announced.
Look, there was a lot of uncertainty. Porsche definitely took it on the chin,
and I'm appreciative of them for that. They did their best to avoid pricing increases and
directly passing things on to clients. It cost them a lot of money. They did absorb a lot,
but ultimately, now we're at the point where it's got to get passed on. And so we did have
some people that would back out of an order because they were uncertain what the car was
going to cost when it came. I was not willing to put us in a position to guarantee pricing of
the car because there's a lot of uncertainty on my end also. You didn't know if they were going to
pass 1%, 2% or 5%. Right. So I felt like we all, when I say we all, the manufacturer, the dealer,
the consumer, we all had to play a part in that party. So I think that slowed down the order
bank for a little bit. At this point, I think people have gotten adjusted to it a bit. I do,
from time to time, hear some grumbling about the pricing of the cars and how it's gone up and up.
With sports cars, I think it was inevitable anyway. With the secondary market, as we talked
about the last time I was here, driving the prices of the cars up, Porsche had been saying for a
while, like look, if this is what the cars are going to bring, then we're going to participate
also. So to me, that was coming anyway. Now it's just a matter of trying to maintain some
profitability. So while we hear a little bit of grumbling about it, I can't say that we've lost
too many sales because of it. Maybe a few here or there. So speaking of sales, what is
right now, most people is wishless when they come into the industry. What's in demand? Are they
still asking for paint to sample? Are they asking for European delivery? So a little bit of European
delivery, a good bit of paint to sample. In particular, if somebody's getting a GT car, we
hear a lot, if I can't get a paint to sample, I'm not buying the car. If I'm spending this much
money or I'm buying this car, it's got to be exactly what I want. How does it work for paint
to sample, your allocations? Does every allocation qualify for paint to sample or is it just a
certain amount? So they have capacity, right? And based on when your allocation is scheduled,
you have to have your paint to sample order in by a certain period of time. So they have
their rounds of allocation and within those rounds of allocation, they only have a limited
capacity to do paint to sample. So this year, paint to sample is done. You can't get a 2026
if it's not already ordered. There's no paint to sample available.
It's March and the paint to sample is closed?
It was January when paint to sample. Really? That quickly?
Yeah. And what we were doing at one point, if you had a car that you missed the deadline
for paint to sample, you could ask for them to push the car out,
catch the next round of allocations and hopefully get that car in as a paint to sample car. They
did that to a limited amount. You can only push so far. So now June being basically cut off for
2026 model year, they've already filled capacity for paint to sample for June and they're not going
to release capacity for the 2027 models until the embargoes have been lifted. They've announced
2027 models. So there's some timing now where nothing will happen. European delivery, people
are asking more about European delivery. I mean, as you guys I'm sure know, they cut it off for a
little while last year while they re-imagined the program. They've opened it back up. Those slots
fill up very, very quickly. So you're not given a certain amount of PTS or certain amount of European
delivery? No, it's first come first serve. Yeah, it's first come first serve. So we do encourage
people, you know, when they're ready to place their order, you want to do it as early as possible
to get yourself the opportunity to get that. So two of the target GTSs that I have available
right now became available because those buyers do not want them because they can't get paint to
sample. So we had them placed and now we don't. So those emails that come through on Sunday or
Monday morning, what's the breakdown of, you know, are they are more people asking for two doors,
four doors? What model are they? It's a mix of both. We certainly get more traffic on four door
and pre-owned cars than we do on two door new cars and orders. I would probably say 60% of what we
get is not sports cars with regards to leads, but that's also pretty representative of our sales
volume, right? Most of what we sell are the four door vehicles, not as many of the two door vehicles.
We have an unfair share of two door cars that we have built up over the years. A lot of that,
thanks to the 918 VIP program. So we for the size allocation that we get, the size dealership that
we are, our percentage of sports car is higher than a lot of people in the same bracket, if you
will. So that gives us a little bit of an advantage for having allocations available for our clients.
Does your does your Premier status also help in that regard?
You know, they've never really said that they give you more allocations for being a Premier
dealer. There's other benefits to being a Premier dealer. A lot of it is tied to training and getting
your sales staff into training at an earlier time slot than other people, so you can get preferred
time slots. There's a monetary benefit to being a Premier dealer, but the recognition and the trophy
are probably, we all kind of seek that a little bit, right? Of course there's the monetary,
but I don't recall getting an email saying you've gotten X amount of additional allocations for being
Premier dealer, but if you look, if you make Premier dealer, it's not easy, right? It's the
top 25 dealerships in the United States and it's measured across many, many metrics and it definitely
levels the playing field. So you can be a giant store with huge volume and still not be a Premier
dealer just because you sell a lot of cars doesn't make you a Premier dealer, but you have to be
meeting your targets or exceeding your targets in order to do that, and so as you do that the
allocation grows and your share of nation grows. One of the dealers we visited down in Florida,
I guess they're preparing for the fact that they aren't going to have the ICE
McCons. They're buying a lot of pre-owned cars. Is that same with you guys?
That has been the case with New Car being limited availability for a while. At one point in time
we were two to one used cars for new cars, both in inventory and in sales. That was our goal anyway.
We were striving for two to one because New Car availability was next to nothing and you were
basically selling through anything that you could get. Right now we're about 50-50 or one to one.
Prices of used cars are starting to creep up and that may be part of the reason. It may just be
the market in general. There are some people speculating now that used car prices are going to
rise and so people are hedging their bets now. They're buying cars now at a premium price now
thinking that maybe if they hold that car, they have that car for three weeks or four weeks,
the price is going to go up and then the margins back there because if you look at
right now what you're paying for cars wholesale and trade-in, there's very very little margin
between that and retail pricing right now. So it's a challenge. Used cars is a big big challenge
right now. Does that limit you to turning the car into a CPO car because the margin is so thin?
It can. Sometimes that's the decision that has to be made. We can look at a car that's right on
the borderline but the cost of CPO car has gone up. Just the fee for CPO in the car has gone up.
Sports car in particular, it's very expensive to certify a car. The beautiful thing about
Porsche CPO program is how far back you can go in the model year range. I think it's 13 model
years that you can go back and up to 120,000 miles that you can go back and certify a car.
That's great. The challenge becomes when you get some of those older cars, the cost to certify
the car is as much as what you would pay for the car to take it in on trade or buy it and so
then there's only so much you can ask for the car. Right? So like a prime example is like right now
we have a 2015 Panamera 4S that we bought. Excellent service history, very well cared for,
incredible combination of color and like it's an ideal car and we would want to certify that car.
The problem is like a mid-20 retail car and in order to certify that car it would cost
about $10,000 to certify the car. So who's going to sell me their car and leave me
call it $12,000 worth of room to certify the car and make profit which by the way is not a dirty
word, right? So we bought that car, we paid top dollar for that car but we're not going to be able
to certify that car because you can only ask. I can't ask $35,000 for that car when the rest of
the cars in the market are $25,000. There's a limited value that it has that at some point
will get exceeded so that's the challenge. I've always wondered why there are
Porsches that fit within the range at a Porsche dealership but it's not automatically CPO so
you just answered that. Yeah and sometimes it comes down to we'll have a car that's borderline,
right? So the standards to certify a car are very, very high. You know you're talking
tread depth that's double what Maryland State requires to pass their safety inspection and
50% brake life, right? Think about that, 50% brake life. So if I take a car in that has tires that
would pass Maryland State inspection but they're just below CPO specifications and it's got 30,000
miles on it so the brakes are at half life. Yeah so a tire is in a brake job that's already
six grand worth of work. Correct and then the fee to certify the car on top of that so at a minimum
$7,000 to put into a car to certify the car. Well how much more are you going to get for a
certified pre-owned car than a non-certified pre-owned car? It depends on the model. It depends
on the market but it's typically a couple thousand dollars. So just because it doesn't have a CPO
it doesn't mean it's a bad car. No. It's just the dollar amount to get at CPO was not deemed worthy.
Do you ever have customers who say I'll buy this car if you CPO it? Yes. And do you tell them?
I'm going to dance around this a little bit. We try to find ways to sell cars
any way that we can sell cars. We never go outside the guardrails
but yes and there have been instances where we can do that. Porsche does not
condone the practice of using the the certification as a closing tool if you will.
If the car is going to be certified it should be certified. If it's not it should not.
There were some dealers years ago that would advertise cars as certified. They would put
them through the certification process but then they would sell them not certified to help with
negotiation practice because you could save a couple thousand dollars by not paying that because
with Porsche you don't pay the fee until the car has been reported to the customer and so you would
have on the flip side of that you'd have a customer come in that thought they bought a certified car
but they don't remember that they were negotiating and that's a question people will ask also.
They'll ask the opposite. Well if I don't care about I'm not going to keep this car for long
enough certification has no value to me would you take it off the car? Well we try not to. We
genuinely try not to do that and definitely that is a frowned upon practice but people were doing
it and then you know again selective amnesia the car comes in for service sometimes not car well
I bought a certified car. Well no because if you look at the car facts it was advertised as a certified
car but it was not sold as a certified premium car. Let's talk about something that Manny stumbled
upon he's always on YouTube and Google and he came across Porsche customer excitement score.
I never heard of that I'm like Steve has got to know what this means. Steve how do you excite the
customer? Cattle prod. So the Porsche is very proud of their reputation they've always held us to a
very high standard when it comes to customer satisfaction whether it's whether it's post
sale or whether it's it's after service so this is their latest measurement of our performance
and in typical Porsche fashion they've set the bar ridiculously high and so the customer excitement
score is based on one question at the beginning of the survey did this experience whether it's
sales or service did it not meet your expectations did it meet your expectations or did it exceed
your expectations the Porsche is really big on exceeding expectations their their top mark
has always been exceeded expectations and so the customer excitement score is is now based on that
if if you excite the customer it's a hundred yeah if you met their expectations it's a 50
really yeah wow nothing in between nothing in between nothing in between and if and if and if
you failed to meet expectations it's a zero which which really hurts and so
it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of years because I
imagine that's you know we'll have that and then they'll move on to the next or they'll find something
else my team generally does a really good job of exceeding customers expectations or at least
getting them to say that we exceeded their expectations and I say that not because I don't
think that my team does an exceptional job I say that because you guys know your listeners know
the expectation of a Porsche owner is already already right and and rightfully so because
they've set the benchmark so high over the years that it's difficult to exceed a Porsche owner
or a Porsche buyer's expectations because they come in already so high and so that's a conversation
that we do have to have is we recognize that's a high bar but anything less than that is considered
failure so have we failed you or have we exceeded your expectation I can say that I'm not going to
get super excited no matter what you tell me if I'm taking my car in for a job so right but I guess
you have to train your staff to make sure that after you got the break jobs say Damon I know
things don't excite you but you're going to get a questionnaire yeah and and that's why you say yeah
we exceeded expectations that's not just a Porsche I remember we bought suburban knew same thing same
thing they said you'll get a survey and if there's any reason why you can't hit number five please
contact us first before you submit the survey before you submit anything less yeah exactly because
obviously that meant something to him that the highest ranking is what they wanted the language
that you use to to discuss post transaction with clients is very very important in order to achieve
the results that you're looking for we don't want to coach people necessarily on on the proper way
to fill out a survey to benefit us but we do want them to understand you know what what metrics were
measured by and what is important to us in order to continue to provide them the highest level of
service right because you want the best people you want the best people representing your brand you
want the best people representing the dealership well those people will only stick around if they're
rewarded to do so or if they feel value in doing that and if those people are constantly getting
beat up because they can't exceed customers expectations they're going to find someplace else
to work but the customer we don't want that customer side you also want to have a relationship
with either be your independent shop or your dealer correct that you can say hey Steve anything I can
do to help you guys out you let me know I'll do my part because you guys are doing a great job
and I think everyone has is realistic in that are you going to be perfect 100 of the time no
but if you can resolve the imperfection that's all I ask yeah that's we have a lot of that we have
very good very low clients that understand that fully that even in the worst of times
understand that mistakes happen things get overlooked or you know one problem turns
into another problem after the car has been released you know from a service perspective
or we sell a car that's got new issues when it leaves the dealership but it has an issue
you know a couple of days later that nobody anticipated and we have a very understanding
client base for the most part occasionally not so much but that's you know human nature that's to
be expected so I noticed we're coming up on the hour and we still have a couple things to go through
Manny had at least four more things to talk about do you want to pick one last one for Steve I guess
say recently the new CEO from Porsche Dr. Lighters kind of gave a state of the union if you will
press conference and he seemed to indicate that they're going to go upscale rather than downscale
meaning you're not going to see the entry level Boxster 944 but he's talking about like a Ferrari
fighter so not the supercar 918 but in between entering Ferrari land okay going back to customer
expectations to me that seems like it's a whole nother level now if you're competing with Ferrari
as far as what customer expectations would be I'm not sure that I fully agree with you on that
I think it depends on the the individual client because it's been my experience look we plenty
of our our owners have Ferrari as well and I don't know that they get treated any better than
then you do at a Porsche dealership or that the expectation is necessarily a whole lot higher
Porsche really has in my mind set a standard that that I don't know that anybody else can touch
there is a mystique and definitely a level of prestige I believe when you get to a certain
level or or at Ferrari or even you know even Lamborghini or some of the other manufacturers
that look when I was younger and and more immature and you know maybe before I fully
understood the understood the Porsche culture you know that was the the hierarchy right yeah
Porsche was on your way to getting something else but if you talk to a lot of these these clients
that own multiple marks the Porsche is the car that they choose to drive the most it's the one
that they feel is the most reliable it's the one that they feel long term is is the better in you
know car to have and to enjoy the Ferrari is almost a trophy and therefore it doesn't get
driven all that often they're afraid to put miles on the car you don't maybe you don't notice the
problems that the car has because the car doesn't get driven so I'm not scared of them going back
and into those waters because I thought they did a phenomenal job with 918 you know that wasn't just
a Ferrari fighter if you will that was a hyper car you know what I mean when you approach the
million dollar more seem to see indicate that they're going to go back to there but what's
interesting is we're seeing this other price point above the turbo I don't know what $500,000
that $400,000 dollar the way I think of it is is that they're yeah they're they're creating a car
between their hyper car or super car line whatever that's going to happen and below that but above
the turbo and GT3 and maybe GT3 RS so something you know like Ferraris are always played you
in that arena where it's like a bit more expensive than a Porsche to buy the car new well they've
been talking about that for a while there's been rumors about that for a while I would like to see
it happen I would like to see them come up with something in that you know five six hundred
thousand dollar range because I listen we have customers that are asking for those cars and
they are customers that maybe right now are buying Ferrari or are buying Lamborghini or
or buying McLaren which you know we've we I've seen a lot of people defect to McLaren because
you can get a McLaren yeah what about the other in that spectrum the entry level Porsche
it made no mention of that and I've known now yeah that's uh years they're not really
uh I'm kind of disappointed but I'm wondering yeah what what you would think of that I would
love them to figure out something in that um in that spirit again because I you know history shows
that that's kind of what elevated and saved the company a couple of times right and as I stated
before you know Macan which was the entry into the brand the entry into the brand now is you know
seventy thousand dollars and you that's for a four-door sport utility vehicle you got to pay
about a hundred something thousand bucks to get a new two-door otherwise it's pre-owned well I mean
if you feel right at this point you you know you got it you have to find either a you know a
Boxster a Cayman that's still around and the base Boxster Cayman started to approach 90 to 100
thousand you know yeah if you could still find one of those cars so so I mean you know entry point
for a 9-11 at this point is I mean 135 grand at least you know of you know well-equipped 9-11
easily 165 grand so I would welcome and embrace that if they were willing and able to do it the
way that they've done it in the past it's my understanding that this that this new leader
and he was around during the Vatican days and and you know kind of understands how that worked
back then so if to not hear that being mentioned yet I am optimistic that it will be mentioned
at some point soon because I believe that he does understand that there's a there's a huge value to
that and what it has done for the company in the past and so you know let's use history positive
history as an example to move things forward I was surprised that he did not mention the
cancellation of the EV Boxster Cayman they're really good at not answering specific questions and
timelines in particular when it comes to things like that it can be very very frustrating from
my side because there's so much speculation that you see on the internet and you see people talking
about and look there there's been more than a handful of times where I've gotten accurate
information from somebody who got it from someplace else long before I found out anything from three
times removed yeah so it's uh and it's it's easier for them to not talk about it and just say it's
delayed as opposed to saying it's never gonna happen right they haven't said it's not gonna happen yet
correct but they haven't said that if you read the headlines of a lot of these automotive journalists
they've said it's canceled but then now they're saying it's revived so it's like what the flavor
of the day is that's what they're just think of how much they've invested in all of this well that's
how I look at I can't imagine they're just gonna just say well you know follow it up and and then
there's talk about this um uh entry level I guess uh SUV or crossover uh that you know people are
theorizing as a Q3 that they're gonna turn into a Porsche um to me that's like oh this may be
something that can help the company if they can make it profitable and handle like a Porsche
well I don't know if that's maybe some muddling of the information that there will be a replacement
at some point for ice macan yeah I have not heard of them going downline any further than that but
they have they have talked about um reimagining or something that will come out they're looking for
a solution yeah it won't it won't be a macan the macan will be the EV but there will be something
to sell alongside of the macan uh that will satisfy what is going away
well uh let me take this we can have another hour see you're just gonna have to come back
but I'm happy to come back I try I try to keep my answers no this is great because I know last
time we went way over this could have easily turned into an extended version um but here's
where I'm gonna just remind folks to head over to pca.org remember to sign up for pca's news
letters we have performance news e-brake news and mark fresh all free upcoming events 2600 plus
people are coming to Porsche parade in Lake Placid 2600 registration is open the event itself is
June 14th through 20th the biggest thing is can you find accommodations because it seems as though
we've taken up every room that's available but if you can find a way to everyone who lives in
Placid go to a location that week then we can borrow their houses exactly um trefinet c registration
it is open excuse me we have still have a few rooms available that's September 19th going out of
Vancouver into San Francisco and Santa Barbara down to LA and that is the pca trefinet c it's a
wine cruise so wine and chocolate I believe and we have some very special guests that will be joining
us on that voyage and we recently dropped the 1000th youtube pca youtube video so thank you to
everyone's efforts Manny Damon and folks that have um been a part of that journey it's been fantastic
if you're looking to drive against some pca members but do it digitally we have pca sim racing
pca sim racing dot com insider swag if you're looking for bottles mugs t-shirts head over to
pca's web store and if you'd like some pca insider decals send us your address information to podcast
at pca.org and we'll send you a few and it was nice to see a few of them on some cars
when we were down at Amelia anything else before we wrap this one up no this is a pretty interesting
podcast and we'll have to have you back because there's still more difficult questions I have to
ask you all right we're going to see Steve in a few days because uh Portion Valley is hosting the
new member party yep I'll be there I'll see you then Damon all good yep all good go watch our videos
especially uh that 1000th video Ferrari 458 versus the 997.2 GT3 RS I'm not liking the
trend right now because there's more comments in favor of Ferrari than the rs no comment no I'm
kidding they're both great cars just uh very very different and how they do pretty much the same
thing it's and it's going to be interesting how much of the Ferrari world will be watching that
video so and they can see what pca is all about yep yep so everyone thank you for listening be
sure to like comment and subscribe consider sharing our show with fellow Porsche enthusiasts
until next time stay safe and we'll catch you down the road
About this episode
Porsche Hunt Valley GM Steve Postal breaks down what “dealership excellence” really takes, from actively managing online reviews (including dealing with a suspicious one-star attack) to daily shop-floor involvement and lead handling. The conversation then dives into the manual vs PDK debate, arguing that modern PDK performance has reduced the practical need for manuals. EV and hybrid realities come next: Postal was surprised by the Taycan’s impact, discusses EV adoption challenges, and defends Porsche’s hybrid “T hybrid” tech as more than just a badge. Tariffs, paint-to-sample limits, European delivery demand, and CPO math round it out.
Original notes
We’re heading inside the showroom with Steve Postol, General Manager of Porsche Hunt Valley and a dedicated PCA supporter. Steve joins us in studio to tackle the big questions: Is the EV market shifting? Are those infamous waitlists finally shrinking? And what’s the real story behind the gasoline Macan’s future? We go behind the scenes to discuss the daily life of a GM, the high stakes of customer satisfaction, and the secrets of PTS allocations and CPO costs. Plus, Steve breaks down the mysterious "Porsche Customer Excitement Score" in this must-watch, candid discussion.
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