Mike O, LW3 and the state of Porsche

We are here to bring you everything and anything surrounding Porsche.

I'm Mike.

I'm Aaron.

And this is Peacartalk.

Welcome to episode of Peacartalk.

I'm Mike.

I'm Aaron.

And we are at Porsche Clearwater with some special guests.

We have GM, Mike O'Donnell here.

And then we have Larry Wood, the third Porsche brand ambassador.

What's going on, fellas?

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for being here, taking some time with us.

Yeah, it's good to be here on a Sunday.

Thanks for soaking up my weekend, guys.

Yeah, no, this is great, actually.

I've been a listener for a long time.

So this is actually pretty cool.

Yeah, so thanks for taking it.

We've been wanting to have you guys on the show for a long time.

You guys have always been so good to us here.

And you guys are so good to the customer.

So I think it was a perfect opportunity.

Things, stars aligned finally that we all could get here.

Mike literally flew in his plane to come here.

So this is special.

He's here.

It's awesome.

So let's get into the background a little bit

for the people who don't know.

You've been in the Porsche industry 20 plus years.

So take us through your career progression.

How does one become a GM of such, obviously, duration and time?

But I know there's way more to that.

So give us a little bit of career bio and how you are present day from past

and go from there.

Sure.

So I started in 2005.

Just as a parts driver, it was sort of an in-between job.

All I ever wanted to do was be a police officer.

So I started as a parts driver, just delivering parts.

That's all I was doing.

I did it here because I love Porsches, right?

And I just wanted to be around the cars.

So I just thought that was cool.

It would be a cool in-between job.

I progressed from a parts driver to the parts counter.

And at that point I was kind of getting into the nitty gritty

working with the shop.

We have other brands as well.

So Porsche, Subaru, Volkswagen, and BMW.

So I was getting involved in all of that.

And I was a car guy, so it was just cool.

And then, all of a sudden, in the parts department,

I was making pretty good money.

I was mostly off on the weekends.

I didn't have to chase drunk people around.

So I just kind of stuck with it.

From there, I did a little bit of motorsport stuff.

So actually, we were a Dynan dealer for a while at BMW.

Oh, nice.

That's cool.

So I did that.

We hung some cool wheels on Porsche's exhausts and stuff like that.

And then in 2009, there was a RGM at the time,

saw something in me that I didn't see myself.

And when there was literally like no one in the sales department,

he promoted me to Porsche sales manager in 2009.

We were not selling very many cars.

The economy was in the tank.

It was not great.

They called me a manager, which at the time,

I was super impressed with myself.

But I was really just managing myself.

And thank God for Amanda, who was in finance.

And Rhett Graham, who actually works with us now,

he wasn't with the company at the time.

But those people were my lifeline.

And they kind of taught me how to do things.

Mike Ford in our BMW store walked me through the road

to the sale and everything.

And then I was just kind of learning as I went.

And we had sort of a new crew come in around 2010.

I was just selling Porsches at that time.

And then in 2000, and I guess it was 16,

I had the opportunity to manage our BMW service department.

So kind of back into what we call the fixed side of the business.

And learned a lot there.

Learned so much there.

Had so much fun though.

Wonderful crew of people.

Again, luckily, I was surrounded by wonderful people

that taught me that.

And into the business, learned a lot.

I went over and managed our Subaru and our Volkswagen store

for a time.

And then back to Porsche in 2020,

running this side of the business as we were transitioning

into this nice new beautiful building.

It is gorgeous.

Yeah.

So that's my story.

Awesome.

Thank you for sharing.

All right, LW3.

Let's hear yours.

I think a lot of young people, I think,

is a very interesting story.

We hear stuff, and I'm sure you do too all the time, Mike.

Like, how do I get into the brand?

How do I start, you know, where do I even start doing

what I'm doing to try to get in and work my way up

and someday become a GM or whatever?

You know, obviously there's traditional ways

if there's a job posting, but those are so rare

and far between, right?

Because a lot of times you don't even need to post out,

right?

Like, you already know a couple people that want to work there

or have some, you know, have some skill set,

so you don't even have to go searching for people.

And I think, you know, Larry has a really good, like,

hey, I work my way up to being a Porsche ambassador

and, you know, let's hear how you did it,

like, your little path to be here and your future

and where you want to be.

And then we'll get into the Porsche side of things

and, like, the mechanics and the cars

and all the fun stuff.

Yeah.

So long story short, I worked at Publix when I was 14

and worked my way up and then the minute I was 18

I went into the pharmacy as a technician

and wanted to be a pharmacist.

And then I joined right during COVID.

So I watched my boss's hair go from brown to gray

in a year and a half and decided that that was not

what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

And so he actually told me to do what I love

and chase it.

And I'm really thankful for that.

I actually would ask him, like, hey, should I be a pharmacist?

And he never said yes.

He never said no, but he'd never said yes.

That was kind of a defining moment there a little bit.

And he's like, I will not be responsible

for your career path.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

I always loved cars, but never was really

like a car family.

My only experiences was like one of my best friends

in high school.

His cousins had like a C63.

They shared it in high school.

Which, like, that was hilarious.

We're running around a 2015 C63.

And so I always love cars and I love social media.

And I consumed it, but I never really, like, did it.

And so I started going to car meets

and then I kind of helped run a car meet.

And then we actually kind of partnered

with Portia Clearwater and would do cars and coffee

here at the dealership.

And then...

So to be clear, you weren't even affiliated yet

with Portia or Portia Clearwater yet.

But you were circulating on the outside

kind of like a looky-loo in the window.

Yeah, this is all while I was working at Publix

and going to school.

I was going to go into pharmacy school

and got accepted and then decided

to go $80,000 in debt for that.

I understand.

It all worked out.

But yeah, no.

And so I kind of pitched to Mike

after we did the events a few times.

I was like, hey, nobody really does social media

for main dealerships.

A lot of the third-party exotic dealers do it.

But nobody, like, no main real dealer does it locally.

And I thought it was something that

would be really useful for a brand like Portia.

And so I kind of pitched that to him

and he took a chance on me.

And long story short, that's kind of where it went.

Yeah, and just to be clear,

we don't have a whole lot of turnover here.

But when I am interviewing people,

you'd be shocked at the number of people

that come in for an interview

and are, I mean, they're coming into a Portia store

and they're in shorts and sneakers

or they're ill-prepared or just,

you know, resume not properly put together.

Should approach it like a corporate job

because essentially you weren't working

with high-level clientele.

Like, as you would wear a suit and tie

if you walked into a corporate building,

you should approach it the same way, correct?

Yeah, so, you know, my man Larry comes in here

dressed to the nines with a business plan.

Literally with a business plan and a PowerPoint presentation.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I mean, put it on my PC, we went through it.

It's like, I don't have time for this, but it was awesome.

Yeah, he was hired.

To me, and I love that, right?

Because it was so different than, you know,

when we do have to go through a hiring process here.

So, it was just so different.

And you can tell, you know, more than anything else,

you know, when I look to hire someone here,

I want somebody that really wants to be here

and really has a plan and really has a drive

and really wants to have a career.

You know, those are the kind of things

that resonate with me.

You know, Larry checked all of those boxes.

Yeah.

And like, as you know, because you've been in the industry

for so long, and anyone else

that's been in any industry for so long,

you know what to look for, right?

You're looking for that passion, you're looking for like,

hey, yeah, you're excited to be here now,

but how about when it's Sunday

and some podcast guys want to bring you in

and it's your day off, will you come in

or will you gripe about it?

So, he's here.

So, he might be griping behind closed doors,

but he's here.

No, I'm just kidding.

But I mean, it does.

I mean, anybody can do the job when it's a good time,

but can you do the job when it's not a good time?

And we've seen a lot of that because,

you know, especially during COVID, I mean,

you know, let's face it,

you know, you can have rookies come in here

and, you know, make great money.

Yeah.

And then, you know, everything was selling

and, you know, now we're coming into a time,

you know, that a lot of the younger folks

don't really remember, like, you know,

you talk about 2020 and prior to that,

where you really had to sort of grind.

I mean, it's very much of a grind.

And, you know, there was, you know,

the profitability wasn't what it was during COVID.

So, it's just a lot of folks don't really remember that.

Yeah.

So, we're literally having to, you know,

some of the younger folks here, we're having to...

Like recalibrate a little bit?

Recalibrate, yeah.

Yeah.

And that's a challenge.

Yeah.

I could imagine.

I mean, I'm sure industry-wide that's a challenge

just because it was, like, not a famine.

It was feast during that time, right?

Oh, yeah.

And now, I wouldn't say famine,

but maybe just calibrated to where it's normal.

Yeah.

Where it's like, you do have to call people now.

Like, it wasn't the way, like,

where the phone's ringing off the hook and the truck,

the cars would sell at port before they even got here.

Right.

You know, it's not like that anymore.

You know, I mean, so many times,

like, we had a lot of friends,

obviously, in the industry everywhere,

and they were telling us that.

And they're like, man, I sold three Panameras

that just got loaded on a truck.

Like, not that speak ill of them or anything like that,

but you just didn't hear stuff like that

prior to COVID, right?

Like, people are, like, banging the door down.

Like, can I get a Panamera, dude?

It's like, of course you can.

Like, come on in.

Right?

Yeah, it's not a problem.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's very, very interesting.

So let's talk a little bit about

tariffs in general.

Like, I think there's a lot of muddy water

for especially a lot of listeners.

We have a lot of people that listen that are on the go

and don't really have time to maybe

dive in and do the real,

like, what's really going on,

especially if no one's purchased a car

post-tariff implementation.

How is Porsche handling that

and what are they doing to go about that

so the people understand what's happening there?

Yeah, so no tariff has technically been applied

to any car that a customer has purchased.

So, Porsche was price-protecting cars

through most of the cars through July.

And then after that, they had a price increase.

Okay.

Right?

So the price increase for most of the cars

was 3.6%.

And that went across the board

and then, of course, Model Year 26 came out.

I think prices went up a little bit

on some of the models, but

there's not been a single tariff

that has been applied to a customer.

Okay.

So, in your opinion, is that

being absorbed in some of that price increase

or kind of rolling it into the MSRP of the car?

Is that how they're kind of combating it?

Sort of.

Instead of saying a line item, tariff this,

like, as some places are doing,

are they kind of just rolling that in?

They're rolling it in, yeah.

You know, the way the tariff works is

it's on the landed cost, right?

So, PAG sells the car to PCNA

for whatever that cost is.

That cost gets marked up to the dealer

and then that cost from there from the dealer

gets marked up to the customer.

So, you know, a 3.6% increase,

theoretically, is going to absorb,

not all of it, but some of it certainly.

But it's cost portion, a ton of money.

And the Volkswagen Group, a ton of money.

Yeah, they've lost a lot of money.

I've seen some of, like, high level numbers

where they're projected to lose, you know,

with a B, billions, you know,

like, because of the tariff

they find out ways to absorb that cost

where it's not directly affecting the customer base.

Yeah, it's affected all of us.

You know, we did have some cars

that, you know, the prices were increased

and after the customer had already ordered

that, you know, Porsche wouldn't price protect.

So, you know, that's never an easy conversation.

And it's sort of a perfect storm as well

because, you know, the EV market we see

has definitely sort of fallen off

and of course the $7,500 tax credit

goes away at the end of September.

You know, it's a perfect storm in that, you know,

the cars are costing more

and then, you know, these EVs

we have a big push to try and get rid of them.

Yeah.

We're losing a ton of money each time we sell one.

A ton.

Yeah.

Like, not Porsche-like in any way, shape or form.

Yeah.

You know, so it's just, you know,

it's definitely a different time

from two or three years ago.

As far as service goes,

I know a lot of people also

come in and do service.

Has the parts been affected by the tariffs

as far as, like, are people seeing

more of a maybe a little bit of an elevated service bill

because, like, maybe they need parts from

that are coming from overseas?

Yeah.

And the numbers haven't been,

haven't been as specific in terms of

parts price increases because there's so many.

Yeah.

You know, a big problem.

Just generally speaking.

And we had a big problem with, you know,

availability.

There were literally parts that were sitting in containers

because in order to properly tariff them,

they had to figure out what the parts,

the metal content was.

So, you know, we would literally have parts

that would come in that would sit for months

that we couldn't get.

Yeah.

And then you get the back order stamped

and it's like, it's not really back order.

Like, customs is holding it.

Right.

Yeah.

And you just don't know.

And, you know, the folks at Porsche don't know.

Yeah.

You know, and not really their fault.

But ultimately, we have to communicate the message

to the customer, which is never an easy one,

especially if you've got a car down.

Yeah.

The end result is the customer's not pleased.

Right.

And like the whole goal in this business is obviously

to keep the customer happy.

Keep the customer happy.

Yeah.

That's our number one goal.

And it's tough.

But, you know, we're all working through it.

We're doing the best we can.

We're trying to keep the lines of communication open,

both with the manufacturer and the customer.

Yeah.

Trying to think outside the box

of people on the can.

Yeah.

What a mess.

Like, I'm just speaking from like, you know,

I ordered parts for some of my older cars

that come from Germany too.

And it's like, I've dealt with that personally

where I'll get a message from the parts company.

Hey, it's in customs, but it could be there for two days

or it could be there for two months.

Yeah.

We don't know.

And like that man puts a lot of people in limbo, right?

It's just kind of one of those guessing games.

And like nobody wants to hear it's like,

well, we'll let you know when we find out.

Yeah.

And it feels, as from a customer standpoint,

you know it's not true because you have enough

higher thinking to know it's not true.

But you're like, is anything being done?

Yeah.

Did you actually order the parts?

Or are you just like, my car is just going to live at your,

well, you need this to make them turbo run.

You're like, well, it's been two months.

They're not going to pay the bill until they go,

oh wait, it's going to cost us less.

Sorry, we'll wait.

I had a question on some of the EVs,

as you guys want them and all the tariff situation.

Do you think the lines, like we're just going to start shrinking

down as far as having like a GTS turbo, a GT car,

stuff like that.

Do you think they're going to kind of make that a little bit

smaller, make that easier on production

and figure out numbers in that way?

Yeah.

So what Porsche has done, you know,

despite the fact that they've had a,

invested billions in EV products.

What they've done is they've sort of turned the faucet off

on some of the EVs.

So very little production of Taycan right now,

very little production of McConn EV going forward.

I don't know where that shakes out,

but what they're talking about is we're actually going

to go down in volume.

So whereas we sell, call it 75,000 cars a year

in the United States now, you know,

we're talking about next year with 718 really going away

for a while anyway, you know,

we're talking about going into the mid to high 60s.

And then as I'm sure you guys know the internal combustion

McConn goes away at the end of next year.

So that's going to be, that's going to be,

that's going to take away a huge amount of volume.

So we're actually talking, you know,

2027 we could be in the mid to high 50s.

Wow.

That's a big, that's a big, big number.

That's a big deal.

Yeah.

So they've got, my understanding is they've got

another McConn coming should be here around 2028.

Then of course we'll have the, you know,

we'll have the EV 718 or whatever they're going to call it,

you know, probably sometime next year.

It's supposed to be spectacular.

But you know, what's the, we don't really know

where that car lands and, you know,

what the EV market looks like going forward.

It's just super murky.

I mean, everything's going to be awesome

when you first get it, right?

Right.

Everything's going to be awesome when we first get it.

I'm sure we'll sell all of them,

but you know, it just, we really don't know

what any of them are.

It seems like they might do, I mean,

the smart move in my opinion would be

treat everything like, especially your EV,

treat it like a GD car, as far as

small batch of colors.

The only the EVs you get, the small,

like just make them special.

Yeah.

And I don't think they were treated as,

they're meant to be a special car,

as far as it's a new thing,

but they wanted it also to, you know,

he wanted to sell like your normal combustion engines,

but.

I read just yesterday that they were talking about,

they were going to bring the internal combustion motor

back in the 718 and like the top model stuff.

I saw that, yeah.

I mean, I don't know how true it is,

but you know, a lot of that information,

like I don't hear that from Porsche,

they don't necessarily communicate that to me.

I would imagine like, it's probably hard, right?

Like I'm trying to think outside,

like I worked in the corporate world for a while.

I think, like Porsche is a little different

because there's a lot of brand loyalty,

there's a lot of customers that are interested,

as opposed to like, if you work for

an insurance company and you were in the corporate world,

there's not going to be disseminated information.

It's like, hey, did you hear there's going to be

changes in the policy next year and that people

are going to save a lot of money,

like external communication,

and then people ask, they're like, hey,

have you heard anything about that?

You work at an insurance company.

He's like, I don't tell us anything like that.

So I think it doesn't roll out internally

because there's so many dynamic shifts, right?

Like that could be told by like

some super high level executive in a press meeting

or somebody's quoted saying that.

And yeah, that may happen,

but maybe there's no timeline on it, right?

Like it could be, yeah, I said it was going to happen,

but I didn't say when.

Right.

So then it could be like an indefinite thing.

And then people come to you,

like people like us,

they're like, hey, what's the inside scoop?

And you're like, there is no inside scoop.

People ask that stuff all the time,

assuming that we get that information

and to a degree, we do sometimes.

But generally it's way after the hours

have been spied on the Nürburgring

and then you see all the stuff.

It's like official already, right?

Because then they have to build out

obviously for the portal for people to order

and all that stuff.

But by then you've got everybody already knows.

So it's not like that secret information, right?

Yeah.

So I mean like GT3 cab,

we've heard that's a thing,

the slant nose car,

we've heard that's a thing.

We've got one more heritage car coming up,

which is supposed to be like a 1980s throwback thing.

I'm pretty sure that's going to be the slant nose.

But again, it's just,

I'm just surmising based on what I've seen.

You're doing what we're doing,

but it's looking and learning.

Yeah, pretty much what everyone else is doing, right?

Like just looking and being like,

this is kind of like a process elimination.

It's probably going to be one of these things.

Yeah.

I heard some,

I think some of that comes out for some journalist stuff.

Because they were like, for example,

I know one of the guys was driving a GT2

and sitting with an executive.

And they're like,

just can't get any crazier than this.

And then they're like,

well, we can't really say,

but yeah, I can.

And they just talked about like horsepower numbers

and like what was kind of,

but then there's kind of left.

Yeah, yeah.

So I have a question for you, Larry,

as a Porsche brand ambassador,

if I'm walking in and I'm eligible as a client,

I've built reputation with you and I come in

and I want to do a special wishes car,

can you walk us through like high level?

I know like we talked offline about how

in the weeds you can get with that,

but can you walk us through maybe somebody

who's never experienced that

or they've heard things from other people?

I think it's a very kind of like,

if you know, you know,

and like it's by the time seven people

call a secret, it changes by the end

and you're like, this is how it works.

And it's like, yeah, you know,

I heard you got to go out there

and give a blood sacrifice.

It's not true, but you know,

by the end you have this tall tail lie

of how this all goes down.

Can you kind of clear that muddy water a little bit

and like walk us through that process?

Yeah, so it's definitely like the,

it's like the Skunk Works Division of Porsche.

It's very, very fun.

And so the way it works is essentially,

the allocation has to be really, really, really far out,

which kind of Porsche or corporate can help with.

And then we kind of,

we go best case scenarios,

always what I say, I go,

if the world is your oyster

and you want to do whatever on the planet,

what would you want to do to this car, right?

And so, just like a GT3 for example, right?

They just added exclusive manufacturer leather

where you can change the leather colors,

let's say you want a specific kind of leather color

that doesn't exist or isn't available there, right?

You can do that.

You can do really commonly seat inserts.

But there's a lot of really small things

within Sandovan that is really unique.

So like they do the cross stitching package.

So that's actually a really limited thing

that we kind of need to cross our fingers for,

which is hilarious.

Special Wishes GT3 allocation, right?

It's incredible.

And then you got to try to get this out.

It's insane.

Yeah, like did you have to submit it, right?

And then it has to get approved, right?

It's not just like, oh, once it's,

there's steps in that process, right?

Correct, yeah.

So the first step is, you know,

what's the dream?

And then I send that to corporate Mason Durin.

He's our contact for Special Wishes

for the Southeastern Division.

And he kind of gets in touch with me

and the customer and we kind of go through the steps.

They usually send us a first batch of renders.

And then being that I've done this a few times,

I've said one card delivered and a few more in the works,

I kind of know what's feasible and what's not feasible.

So Mason will actually send our list of Special Wishes

to Germany and they'll do feasibility testing

is what they call it.

Okay.

And so a lot of it now.

Exactly, that's the same thing I was thinking.

Nine.

There's a lot of nine.

Yeah.

Whether it's numbers or no, it's a lot of nine.

But yeah, no, it's a really unique process.

And it's not putting a stick in a GT3 RS.

It's all, you know, visual things.

Nothing performance based.

Yeah, you can't mess with the mechanical situation.

Correct.

So you're seeing this room for another level.

Did that say that?

Yeah, that's called recommissioning.

Yeah.

Yes.

That's a whole other level.

That is a whole other level.

But yeah, no, you can change the wheel colors.

You can change, you know, obviously the seats and the leather.

And you can go really bananas for sure.

But there's some crazy unique stuff.

And, you know, as long as you're interested in doing it,

you know, it's definitely doable as long as you're patient.

It's a very long process.

And they'll walk you through the steps.

We'll go through feasibility testing.

Most of everything has kind of already been done at this point.

So there's not really true feasibility testing that needs to be done.

And then Portia Corporate gives us kind of a ballpark on the pricing.

It's never 100% accurate until we get to the final spot.

Customer, I got to let you know we got to be plus or minus 50 on this.

Not that high.

But there are plus and minuses.

And then you kind of, we get into a locked date,

just how we would on a normal build.

And then the car gets actually,

the craziest part of the special wishes program is,

the car gets built completely,

how you would on the Portia website,

and then it gets ripped apart.

Yeah, because it goes to them and they got to do their thing, right?

Yep.

So they go do their thing.

And it's really crazy.

They'll junk.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, essentially, yeah, they'll build the car to completion

and then they rip it all apart and build it how you want it.

So it's a really cool process.

So like we've got a car inside right now.

We've got a Copa Florio GT3 RS,

and that one's got the wheels paint matched right with a matte finish.

And that one's really crazy.

It's got the blue carbon fiber,

which is like kind of a newer thing they've been doing.

But yeah, I mean, the world's your oyster, essentially.

So there's definitely some production limitations

on certain aspects,

but most of the time it's pretty much the world's your oyster.

And is it also for like a customer that's coming in,

but is it also timing,

or does each dealership get so many special wishes?

How does that process work as far as,

like, oh, you have an opportunity for this?

Is it like, there's going to be three,

or is it just a window where special wishes is accepting

during this time frame?

And if you happen to be in that window,

you have a lot of ticket, basically.

Yeah, so it's not really a window thing.

It's really just like as long as you're patient.

So it's really far out in allocations

for special wishes.

Most of the time, they're usually about a year out

for the allocation month for the build month.

It's not when it gets delivered.

It's usually about a two-year process

for the car to get delivered and done in the States.

That probably makes sense, because they have a backlog, right?

So they're already projecting and foreshadowing.

Yeah, I think they're doing it for the whole world.

But one of those like kind of,

I was talking about earlier, the allocation

and an allocation, so the cross-stitching.

They only build 25 of those a month for the whole world.

Wow.

And if you want to do cross-stitching,

we've got to apply for cross-stitching.

So it's really cool.

And they do some other stuff like that,

the upstream because you've seen the chroma flare cars

and stuff like that.

Same kind of process.

It's an allocation and an allocation.

We ask corporate.

And as long as you're really flexible on time frame,

they can make it work, right?

So if you're not in a rush for the car

and maybe all of December is filled

for cross-stitching, but they've got a slot

so as your opinion, I mean obviously on price

because that's a specialized,

it obviously adds a lot more.

But is a factor for a lot of folks

because they don't have the patience to wait

for that program, is that part of it too

where people are like,

because from what I'm standing like,

is if you're long as your patient,

you can get what you want essentially.

So if I'm sitting there like,

hey, I don't really need the car for two years,

but I want all of these things,

am I correct in thinking that

is happening?

Yeah, it's really a patience thing

and obviously an okay with spending

the amount of dollars that it takes.

Obviously, yeah.

See, I was always under the opinion

where it was like, no, not everybody

even gets an opportunity for that.

It's like, hey, it's almost kind of like

be happy with your GT3 allocation

and get out of here.

And there's times where...

Because that's kind of like the word on the street.

If you haven't gone through the process, you don't really know.

A lot of times where it's definitely not doable,

you know what I mean?

I've got a particular allocation at a certain time,

but yeah, no,

if it's a far, far out one,

it's pretty easy.

It's not that hard, but you got to be flexible.

I've got a customer, we're doing leather to sample

on their car.

So it's not even a normal leather color.

It's a very unique...

They got to pick it out and dye it

and essentially make the leather.

They don't have it on hand.

They're just waiting for that.

So it's going to be a really, really cool car.

So, circling back to Mike,

and you probably know the answer to this too, Larry,

but just to...

I guess we've talked about this in the past,

but I still think it's just clear as mud still.

Do allocations

change as far as like...

Let's just talk about GT cars.

If you sell so many GT cars

and successfully sell them,

or is it based off other sales

like volume on that side,

how does it work as far as,

oh, I've got 100 GT3 allocations

for 2026,

but maybe 2027 I'll have 200

because I sold everything we had.

How does that number fluctuate

go up or down?

So dealers are allocated everything

based on what they call share of nation.

So basically the number of cars you sell

versus other dealers in the nation.

And that's broken down by model line.

We get allocated

GT cars once a year.

And

they basically

apply that share of nation percentage

that we have for 9-11

to the number of cars that were allocated.

And you get your number.

So if they don't build a lot, we're not going to get a lot.

If they build a ton,

we're going to get them out.

So it's very murky.

We really don't know until we get it.

So basically you're...

you don't know until you get awarded

your number, essentially.

We don't know until we get awarded our number.

The only thing we can do to really drive

that number up

is to increase our share of nation

of 9-11.

So sell more 9-11s.

We have a number of methods doing that.

One of them is going to this

company car sale that Porsche has.

So in this month

they have two of them, but

typically it's one a month

online.

All these cars run through the block

and we bid on them.

So internal dealer auction, essentially, right?

Correct.

That's run through Porsche cars in North America.

The cars are in various locations in the country.

Most of them are corporate executive cars

or

track cars.

Just a little bit of everything.

Marketing cars,

technician training, stuff like that.

But

transaction prices.

So every time you buy one of those cars

you basically get credit.

So if I buy a 9-11,

I get credit for selling another 9-11.

It's like I sold another one.

So it's going to increase that share of nation number.

But

because

when you buy these cars it counts

sort of as a sale, which also goes

towards your premier dealer number.

It goes towards your share of nation.

The transaction prices on these cars are

I bet.

Probably really competitive, right?

Because everybody has that same mindset you just said.

They're like, hey, this is an opportunity for us

to get maybe a cool car and also get

credit for selling that cool car and buying a cool car.

Right. And a lot of it is

for us, we want to hit premier

dealer every year.

We're trying to drive premier dealer metrics.

We're trying to drive 9-11 share of nation

because everybody in the world wants a GT3

and I'm never going to have enough of them.

So we want to drive that 9-11 share of nation up.

Consequently, when we go to a company

car sale, we'll spend

9-11's transact anywhere

from 20 to 50 grand over MSRP.

Wow. It's what we pay them.

We pay for it. And it's not like

That's in-house. That's in-house.

And it's not like

I go buy a base 9-11

coupe and I have the ability to sell it

for 50 grand over. It's not the case.

So

it's a significant investment.

That's one thing about this brand.

In order to

succeed, it's a significant investment

everywhere. It's a significant investment

in the facility. It's a significant investment

in the people. It's a significant investment

in the inventory. In order

to perform at a high level, it is

expensive. Everything has to be hitting

on every level. Got to pay play.

That makes total sense.

How long has that program been around? Obviously,

it's got to be semi-new, right?

Probably what, last 10 years that program

has been around? Something like that.

What they call the share of nation credit went away

for a while, because

dealers would, you know, because

the transaction prices were so high.

So, you know, Porsche

took away the share of nation credit and then they implemented

it again beginning of this year

they did. So it's

a great way to grow your allocation. It's also

an expensive way to grow your allocation.

But it's, you know, this is

a tough, expensive brand

to grow with. Yeah.

And then let's transition a little bit like

some fun stuff, some motorsports stuff

like that each dealer gets to do

and especially you guys, like, so you guys are a

man-tie dealer. Right. So

do you guys get credit as a dealership

with each man-tie kit that gets

sold? Is there incentive from Porsche to be like

oh, hey, man, you

you know, last year you did 30 man-tie kits.

Is there, what's, I guess

my answer is

they're dangling that carrot.

What's your reward as a dealership if you

execute what they're asking you to execute?

We're one of, you know, of the myriad

of KPI that Porsche

looks for us to hit.

You know, part sales is part of that

and that's where man-tie falls in.

So, you know, they want us

to, and again, talk about premier dealer, right?

That's what we're always shooting for. We want to

be in the top 25 in the nation.

So the man-tie kits

count towards tech equipment

and PLX purchases. Which tech

equipment and PLX is typically, you know, your

roof rails, stuff like that.

Stuff that you hang on the car after the fact

or shirts and hats.

But it's a big number. And what

man-tie does is allow us to hit it.

Now, I don't want to take away from the man-tie kit.

Those things are amazing. Super cool.

Love it.

But they're

they're expensive. But they help us

to hit those targets. Okay.

So basically it falls into that

parts area and like

because of the expense. I mean

it's not a secret. Everybody knows they're super expensive.

But that helps that number. You

achieve that number. Okay, that makes a lot more sense.

I was going to say, like, I didn't know if they had it

like separate where they were kind of like

alright, man-tie kits are like its own thing

and push the fish. It's about to turn

like get those man-tie kits out there.

No, not really like that.

But I mean, it's, you know,

you want to sell, you know, call it

three or four of those a year. At least we do.

I mean, every dealer is going to be a little bit different.

That's always cool too, right, for a dealership to have it

and like, you know, take photos

and kind of like brag on it too, right?

Because they look so wild and cool looking.

It's a great car to have in the community and everybody sees it

and it's just, it's just ridiculous.

They're like, oh man, what is that dude?

They're like, have you guys

done any three RS man-tie kits?

My first one is in my shop right now.

Oh.

Right there? Yeah.

That nobody can see right now.

Yeah, it's wild.

So what are your thoughts? I want to get both of your thoughts on this

with the whole

black window

carbon fiber situation with that car.

How do you feel, like, yay or nay on that?

Oh, wow.

I think if you're the person that is

putting a man-tie kit on your GT3RS

to take the track, I think you don't care.

Yeah, and that's true.

Right, you put it in reverse, the backup camera is still there.

My colleagues at Champion

have got a cool solution where they put a

back up camera, or a camera in there somewhere

like a, they put a new review mirror in.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's cool.

Where they actually sort of, you know,

alleviate that pain point.

That makes sense. How about you?

How do you feel about it?

The way is so massive anyways.

You can't see anything on the back of the stock car.

That's a good point.

You see a vague shape that's red.

You know what I mean?

There's nothing back. It's so hard.

I'm surprised you should sell the real

estate for that shark fin, right?

That should be advertising billboard as it goes.

If you ever get some anti-kit, should do that.

They're like, hey, I have space on this car.

You can pay me to advertise your business,

like whatever on that thing.

I think it's a really cool car.

I remember when they came out with that kit

and I think they were testing it on the Nürburgring

and I was like, there was already

a wild car like Larry was saying

and it's like, yeah, I guess.

I mean, you're already there.

I mean, might as well just keep going, right?

Yeah, I mean, they're trying to mimic this thing

a little bit with that shark fin.

So let's talk a little bit about

and Larry's been doing a lot of these

cool events at the dealership

and how do you decide

when and where and

the interest

of having an event

that you're hosting

for people because essentially

it's money out of the dealership's pocket

to kind of, hey, come hang out.

There's dealerships

I'm sure that do better

at that and then there's some dealerships

that probably don't do that.

So you guys are one, I feel like

you do a really good job of hosting

lots of different kinds of events

and how do you

come up with

do you want to try to do one a quarter?

How does that work as far as your planning goes?

Yeah, so Portia

corporate actually comes out with a plan

of kind of the events we need to do for the year.

For them, right?

And then obviously

we just do our own sometimes too.

Relate to that.

For us, for the customer

and obviously other local events around

kind of the county.

So this weekend was actually

one of the big ones that Portia

was like, hey, we're going to

you guys are going to do this. We're like, cool.

But it's really cool. They give us kind of a vague

kind of plan

and a few different ideas

and stuff like that and parameters for us to hit

on kind of what they want to see

and so we kind of take that and run

and they're usually actually really

they're usually actually very, very strict

on kind of what they want to see.

We're able to, you know, tweak and make changes.

Armorconi v. Launch Party last year

so they're watching but

not a lot of people know. You guys know they're watching

but we're kind of like

you're like, yeah, big brothers watching this.

So we actually wish to submit it.

They don't watch but we have to submit everything

to them.

Photos of the event, videos and stuff like that

and they kind of give us a guide and

kind of be free with it and make some changes.

But this year it was actually

it was essentially throw a giant

Porsche party and have fun.

We were ready. We were happy to do that.

It was easy.

It was a blast for sure.

It was a blast. So for like items

like this sitting right behind us, this

963 display

is it almost kind of like

going to the library when you're

in elementary school. You're like, hey, you know I'm having an event.

Here's my library card. I need to check the car out.

Can you send it to us?

Yeah, essentially, actually.

If you turn it in late, you know how this goes.

We kind of give them

the dates that we're looking to host the event

and we'll say, hey, we're looking for something fun

and Mike and I were kind of like

I mean, what's more

fun than a 963 race car?

So basically

there's a whole arm that you guys

reach out to and they assist you.

You're like, hey, we're having this party and they're like, yeah, see you on the books.

Okay, we'll see what we got for you.

Is that kind of how it goes? Yeah.

It's pretty cool though that there's like

basically a

hey, we want to try to do this or get this car

and they help you with that. That's nice.

Yeah, it's very cool. And they don't do it just like the race cars.

They do it with real

road cars as well. Like they have stuff at

travels, right?

They're like, oh, well we've got like a

I don't know, like something wild, right?

A 935 in your area

that's currently in Miami, but

if you need it in two weeks, we can get it to you then

Yeah, it's usually a lot further out than that.

We need to schedule everything, but

so we sponsor

big festivals of speed down in

St. Pete at the Vanuay Park. And so last year

we brought out

kind of before GT3 RS was crazy

and

we brought out a pastel orange one

from corporate, so that was really cool

to have that car out there

and show that and I guess a few years ago before I was here

they did the 919, so

very, very cool. Yeah, that goes back to what

Mike was saying, right? Got to pay the play

like at all levels, even if you're hosting

an event. So that 919

in particular, I want to say that

car cost like

15 grand to get here

and because of where we

had it, in the middle of

Vanuay Park, I had

to rent one of these big giant

forklifts and they

sent a guy down to operate

the forklift because the car was on a platform

and they had to forklift this

thing through Vanuay Park and put it

where I wanted it. Oh goodness.

And then of course when the show was over

reverse the process

and put it back into a truck. That was wild.

That's why this one sounds wild.

It's a little easier to...

That is your process. Because it's like

it has a whole thing that goes with it, right?

So like, wow.

Yeah, you don't think about stuff like that until

you really have to start doing it. Like you think about

something that's like a whole

display is built around it and you're like

well, you can't really have

a piece of it without having the whole thing.

The whole thing has to go somewhere.

Okay.

Wow, that is wild. But

I mean that's cool. Like in a way I'm sure it keeps

these guys super busy, right? Like juggling

all of those like events and all of those

like

I guess

next question would be is like

since you've been in the industry for so long

and you've seen so many arms of it

you know, I know

I don't want to give you a layup, but like I know

customer is

number one and we all know that and that's

like, but what was your favorite part of

the business that you've seen

that you got to be a part of

that you enjoy just personally

for you? Like being selfish.

You're like how I really like this part of the business.

Wow.

You know, this is a people business

and I have to say

that I've been lucky enough to work with

amazing people

that

teach me and challenge me

every single day. No matter where I've worked.

So

you know, much like

flying, this is also a business that will

humble you quickly if you get complacent

or you do something stupid.

So

just the fact that I have been able

to learn and grow and spend

a bunch of time with just really

amazing people. Not just at the dealership

level, but the manufacturer level

like the relationships I've built

and the friendships I've built

clients. I mean it's

just been super cool.

So that is definitely

my favorite part. That makes sense.

You wouldn't dug

tomorrow you used to work together right at one point.

Yes. That's pretty wild.

He's a riot.

Yeah, his career's gone

an interesting way right on his own

like entrepreneurial wise and done his own

thing. That's pretty cool. But again

the car community is a small community

right? So it does turn and

Porsche is specific. It gets even

smaller on the microscope

than other areas.

Especially the Porsche community. It's

super, super small.

There's not a lot of turnover here

so like me, I've been with it 20

years. I know

tons of people.

And there's

folks that

know that have been with the brand that have

been doing longer than me.

It's a wonderful brand to be

a part of consistently. It's not always

perfect, but it's consistently been a wonderful brand

to be a part of. Yeah, they always say a great measure

of a brand is not having a lot of turnover

right? I mean some of the biggest

corporate giants are measured on that.

Very low turnover rate. That means

worker satisfaction is high.

People enjoy what they do there

and they want to stay there and they want to spend their careers there.

So that says a lot about Porsche as a brand.

Yeah. It's not always perfect.

It's a hard business. It's a very,

very hard business.

But ultimately I think it's rewarding

and it's challenging and you can grow

and you know, even me

that I've been in the business for a long time, 20 years.

Yeah. I learned something new all the time.

Yeah, that's cool.

How about you Larry? So far I mean

I know you've been exposed to a lot of cool stuff

and so far what's your favorite

part?

There's a lot.

Being in it for only the short time

that I have so far, I mean

it's really cool

to help people

on the journey of like literally

building like their dream, right?

Their dream. Like it's

absolutely insane because it's like

if I look back like five years

I had zero clue

that I would like even be close to

touching these cars and being around these cars

and like, you know

it's crazy because

these cars are on my

wall, it's on a poster you know

when I was a kid and it's like

it's crazy to just be like, oh yeah

we just got a special with this

GT3RS right there and a Speedster

right there and a 4.0

and a 964RS.

It's crazy

but building the dream cars, helping people

just get there

whether it's their first one or their 50th.

It's so fun to just

kind of go through that process with them

and do all that.

I mean it's like a

kidney candy store. It's the one time

I think people kind of get the chance to be like

you know, wow.

They're happy, right? So it makes total sense

you're like helping them achieve their goal, we're helping them

get their special car and like you're pumped up

and you get some say in it

like, you know, they're in the room with you

and some guys and they're like, what do you think?

Do you think I'm kind of like

you know

this is like duck fur, should I do this or not?

You're like, it's a choice.

Yeah, no, for sure.

I mean I've had those

you're like, it's a choice.

Yeah, I mean and even building

everything from like a base

Cayenne or base Carrera all the way to

going to Atlanta and building special

which is GT3RS

it's, you know, I love being

part of that process and kind of

it's like, it's crazy. It's like

I'm 23 and these people are asking me my advice

and I'm like, I guess I do know

Look professional, look professional

Am I doing this right?

This is good, like so

Your mind's going off like 9, don't do that

9

You do not need that much carbon fiber

No, no, it's been

really cool to kind of be part of

the step in the process though for sure

I would imagine being a young man too

I think that would be super exciting

actually I should take that back, it doesn't matter

how old you are, I would be exciting to sit down

and essentially spend somebody else's money

you know, I don't mean that in negatively

but I mean we do that with our friends all the time

we're like, yeah you should buy it, you're like, yeah

you want me to just drop 250, no problem

I'm like, dude, I'm excited for you, you should buy that

that's a cool car and you're like, I get

as excited as, you know, the person

buying it for their own car because they are so cool

all those cars are cool and it's like

helping them spec it is just as

you know, close to exciting

as buying it yourself, I feel like

I mean I feel that way even with friends

you know, ascertaining new cars

and you know, seeing them for the first time

when they show up, you know, I get those feelings

I'm like, man this car is so cool

that's how Kevin got that damn car

it was over a couple drinks in her mezzo

and I was like, hey, you definitely need this in your life

one thing I love about this

is, you know, my sales team

gets as excited as the customer does

when these cars come out

like, you know, when the truck rolls up

and we know we've got a special car on there

my guys are out there taking videos up

taking the videos for the customer

I mean they are, but they're not taking videos

just specifically for the customer

everybody's like, this thing is cool

check this out

and I love that, that's the environment

I want to foster here

and everybody

that is an ambassador here, I see them posting

because I follow several of them

it could be a car, even like

a good client has a car

even if it's not new and they're like

hey, brand new touring just came in

and they picked up their allocation and just got delivered

and it's like, two really cool cars there

and I was like, whoa, dude, that's awesome

you know, and that's just as exciting

you're like, hey, I want to turn in my PTS

touring, you're like

you come to the right place

we'll take that

I remember

the first batch of the new

GTST hybrids came off the truck

I think we all left

and went outside, and I think I remember

like somebody, I think it was you

looking in the sale group chat

like, you guys need to be in here

I need at least one of you in here

can someone help me answer the phone

there's no one in here

we're operating

normal business hours everyone

and then everybody fights over who gets to go

put gas in it, right?

I'm going to put gas in it

you went last time

that's so cool

you know, cool stuff coming in

and let's talk about the facility

real short before we close

it's a beautiful facility

it's a new facility, I'd still consider it new

because it still wasn't built that long ago

how long ago was this built

so, construction was done

we moved in in 2022

it was a long time coming

we sort of started

literally the plans and everything were drawn pre-COVID

and then when we finally broke ground

in the midst of COVID, so it took forever

originally back at

I call it the mothership

at St. Petersburg, 34th Street North

and 38th Avenue North

that building has been there since 1953

forever

we built this in 2022

this is what they call

it's a Gen 4.5

so the new stores you see are what they call a Gen 5

facade's a little bit different

Darth Vader red lights on the outside that I like

that's very Porsche

dot point

4.5

they added a lot of the dark wood accents

that you see here

and the fitting lounge

near my office there

just different touches

to soften it up because before it was very

sort of cold in here

very cold in German

aluminum everywhere

very sterile

definitely softened

more warm

more modern German

not old school German

the classic display too

that was a new addition

classic display is awesome

we always try to keep something cool there

luckily we have a client that has lots of classics

that is generous with them

so obviously

moving here

it's a new facility, it's exciting

it looks and presents well

better business because of the new facility

like have you noticed an uptick

over the time like

from the old facility

obviously you did well it was Porsche

but have you noticed like hey it's out here

it's this thing and it's shiny

it's new like more people are excited

so we do notice

we do notice that

it's a destination

so most folks that come here

intending doing business in one form or another

we've noticed a lot more North County folks

because I mean

I've lived here a long time

driving from Clearwater Beach

to St. Pete

it is brutal

it's definitely more centrally located

getting here is a little bit tricky for the first time

but once you've got it

you know where it's at

it's actually been wonderful up here

we've seen our business go up

significantly

it's been a wonderful move for us

back to the pay to play

it was cost gobs of money to build

gobs

not only was the building gobs of money

but then when we did the upgrade

a year and a half later

that was another gob of money that we just put into a brand new building

which is insane right

it's insane but you know

it's wonderful because

must get 4.5 now

that was crazy

excuse me coming in

and they made that a premier dealer category

it was awesome

it's a wonderful environment

you're immersed in the brand

when you come here

I mean owning a Porsche

is an experience so it's like

you're not like any other automakers

that are out there

and Porsche has been a very good job

and a very good steward of doing that

making sure that it's a lifestyle

brand

these kinds of facilities

help that though

as opposed to like it's a different vibe

it's a different feel right

especially for a new customer

that hasn't been immersed in Porsche ever

if you have somebody new walking in the door

that's going to buy hey I'm just kind of testing the waters

I want to buy like a Cayenne

this is insane

I didn't know that there were dealers

who did stuff like this out there

and they wake up and things change

overnight for those folks

it's pretty wild

it really is a brand that if you invest in

it's worth it

Aaron you have anything else for our guests

I don't think I have too much

we've taken enough for their Sunday

Mike's got to get back up in the air

do his baller flying

he does like part-time

aerial ticketing

like he's got a radar gun

that's how he gets the cops on

he's like little did you know

I'm doing a part-time gig

I'm giving tickets out

no

thank you guys so much for joining us

thank you so much for what you guys do for us

absolutely I'm glad we got to do this

I appreciate you giving us your time

I don't have anything else for you guys

appreciate you guys

thanks Aaron

see you

we out

Mike O, LW3 and the state of Porsche

Porsche Panamera

Porsche Taycan

Tesla By Model

Porsche 911

Porsche Cayenne

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