Porsche Dealership Secrets Revealed - Interview with Top Porsche Dealer Shannon Harper

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing

the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there, and hoping it all works out?

Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter

and potentially lower your insurance bill, too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car

insurance, and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it today at Progressive.com,

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage match limited

by state law, not available in all states. ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

New episodes drop every week, and yes, we're laughing through the trauma. For once. Follow,

grab a drink, and join us as we go back to the bar. ACAS helps creators launch, grow,

and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAS.com.

Welcome to Renthousiast Radio, the podcast where Will and Derek

navigate the winding roads of Porsche Obsession, exploring the good and the bad of Porsche ownership.

Grab your favorite beverage, pull up a chair, and join us. Renthousiast Radio, because life's too

short not to talk about Porsches. Welcome to Renthousiast Radio. I'm Derek. I'm Will. And I'm Shannon.

Folks out there, I am so happy today to have Shannon Harper on with us on Renthousiast Radio.

Shannon presides over seven different dealerships. Shannon has the inside track to Porsche corporate,

as well as the dealer level Porsche experience. And one of the things that we really hear about

from our community and our listeners is, hey, what should I expect with my experience going to a

Porsche dealership? Why do they do certain things? Why do they price things the way they do?

And what is up with this thing called allocations? And so we are so happy to have Shannon on with us

because he's going to let us know, maybe not how the sausage is made, but certainly where it is made.

And we can kind of ask him all the questions that you folks have asked us

in the comments over the last couple of weeks. So Shannon, I want to give you our most warmest

welcome. Thank you for being on Renthousiast Radio. Thank you, Derek. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, man. So Will, we got the guy here that can clue us in to everything we want to know. And so

I don't want to waste this. And I'm going to let you jump off first. What's your burning question

for Shannon? My burning question would be, I'm just going to go here. This whole world that I

think has cooled off a little bit, but these dealers that are marking up a way over sticker

for the halo cars, for the cars that the guys are chasing, or the myth that, hey,

you got to buy five Macan EVs in order to earn your way into overpaying for a GT3 touring.

And of course, I'm saying that tongue in cheek, but I would love to get your thoughts on that

because I don't think that's how you guys do it, right? No, no. The kind of terminology that people

use is ADM, additional dealer marker. And Porsche was very Porsche cars North America,

and Porsche AG was very frustrated by this. And that's part of the reason you've seen the price

increases by PAG because they said, well, if the American consumer will pay it, we'll just raise

our prices and kind of cut the dealer out of this whole nonsense. Wow. So definitely, I mean,

it's been a very frustrated thing for a lot of customers. I personally hate to see that because

I think the cars should, Porsche buyers care about value. They're well-heeled buyers,

but they still care about value. And when there's just these obnoxious markups of $50,000 to $100,000,

it destroys the whole value of the brand. And I hate seeing cars. We'll personally,

we'll blacklist customers that we bought. We'll see the car we sold them on Tuesday,

we see it online on Thursday, and we never sell them another car again. Because our

ethos is we want to sell cars to people that drive the cars and enjoy them, that buy them for the

love of the brand. And we don't charge, we charge MSRP. We don't charge over sticker.

Don't play all those games because I think it's, I take the long view on it. I mean,

the market's going to end and flow. This will, this will change. So we don't, we don't do it. And we

have a, we'll get reached out to people that say, I don't want a GT3 Touri. I said, I got 40 people

on the list and I get five a year. And it's going to be a while. So, but the good news is you get

at a great value. And I have a lot of respect for dealers that take that

tact that you just shared with us. I mean, it just feels, and I'm aware of other dealers here,

even kind of close to me, that it just feels so opportunistic and short-sighted and, you know,

foot on your throat kind of deal. And, and, you know, I'm aware of other dealerships that are

doing what you're doing. And I think that I liked what you said, like the long game,

it just doesn't leave the bad taste in somebody's mouth. And I think it,

it speaks to a high level of, you know, frankly, integrity. So that's why I wanted to hit you with

that. And I didn't mean to open up with kind of the elephant in the room, negative tact on it.

But, you know, it's what people talk about. I mean, I look on social media, people are

complaining about it and they're, they're complaining about dealers, you know, so, yeah.

I would say the overwhelming majority of dealers still don't do it. It, it, it's been,

you know, the, the 20% of dealers do it. And I think that's where you see,

that's where you see it more prevalent. But, you know, it's, it's definitely a point of contention

and it's something we use to reward those who have been loyal to us. You know, that's, that's,

that's where we, we really have a very loyal customer base here in East Tennessee. And

we sell out all of our allocations within 10 miles of us, you know, this, we have,

we have very blessed for, for a very, very strong portion of community in, in Knoxville.

Yeah. Yeah. And customers have long memories. And so, you know, post COVID in, they're calling

you up and, and you're saying, well, yeah, it's going to be 75 over sticker. And they walk and

they find an MSRP dealer like yourself and they buy it for MSRP, they're never going to go back to

that other dealer. And I can speak from that, from personal experience, because I'm like,

if you're going to take advantage of me with this artificial tax is greed tax, because of,

you know, scarcity, then when there's plenty, I'm going to go to the person that treated me like

a human being. And so, Shannon, I certainly appreciate that. And I, we talk about this a

lot too in the podcast, we talk about kind of the runaway prices, when it comes to Porsche,

both on the new and used market, and kind of this thought process that, as someone really has their

heart set on say a 2025 992 base, right? And they love that. But then all of a sudden, it gets a

$50,000 ADM put on it. And then that's out of their price range. And they can't afford that,

because when the world normalizes, they're going to be underwater on that car potentially. And so,

then they start looking at the use market, and they go, well, if I was going to spend $180,000

with options on a base Carrera, well, then I'm going to spend $130,000 on fill in the blank,

991.2 or whatever, that drags up the price of the cars under it, right? Like as far as use prices

go up. And then the poor son of a gun who's looking for the 991.2 says, well, those prices

have gone up, I can't afford that. And, you know, an infinitum. And so, the fact that you're holding

the line as MSRP, you know, kind of presents or prevents that in the Tennessee area.

Yeah. And I think that we're starting to see across the country, you know, there's a huge

wholesale month from PAG to Porsche Cars North America on the 911s. And I think that, you know,

with relative softness in China, USA has become the largest market for Porsche. And so, we've

seen our greater share of 911s being allocated to America. And as that goes on, you know, you're

able to fill that demand. And I think there's pricing, well, even though $50,000 over for a

base career, I think that's long gone. I don't see that happening much more.

Which is mainly still in the GT cars in the specialty orders.

Yeah, I mean GT cars are still so limited. I mean, we're a mid-sized dealer. We do about

300 new cars a year. And we've got three GT3s and one GT3 Touring. That's not a lot. So,

they're still very limited. Still, you know, we play every game. We can possibly play with Porsche

with all the different criteria they set out. We do all that to make sure to earn our fair share

of allocation of those.

What kind of criteria? I'm curious. Are you able to share that? I'm really curious. What

do they have? What kind of hoops do they have you jump through?

You know, a lot of it is your basic standards type stuff. I mean, how well are you doing?

How well are you representing the brand? You know, I mean, are you participating in one of the

things we've always done is the restoration challenge. We've done it every single year since

it's come out. We're very enthusiastic about doing that. And that earns you additional allocation.

So, if you win your class or you enter cars and you do a good job, you're awarded with

extra 911s, extra sports cars, extra turbos. So, we do that very well. I mean, Connor and our

marketing team, I mean, these guys are... I put them up against anybody in the country. They're

they are doing things that Porsche recognizes as

amazing stewards of the brand. And this is the type of stuff they want to see other dealers doing.

It's classy. It's very enthusiast focused. It's track days. It's great events. It's

not some of the kind of cheesy purple gorilla on the roof type of advertising you expect from

dealership. I mean, it's geared toward Porsche enthusiast. And then facility-wise, I mean,

if you have a... We should be opening up our Gen 5 facility next month. Facility is a big thing

for all the manufacturers. If you have a nice facility, you take great care of your customers.

You sell lots of cars. They generally treat you pretty well. So, facility is a big thing for

Porsche. How you represent the brand in the market. Man, you sound like a busy dude. I mean,

what does your day-to-day or week-to-week look like? Well, I don't have an office. So, I just kind

of float around. I mean, every week's different. I mean, it's really hard to pin down. I mean,

today I have this and then kind of wide open in the days that I'll have anything on my calendar.

Usually, the days where the wheels come off and we have all sorts of crazy disasters. But,

you know, dealing with everything from HR issues to legal issues to banking to

manufacturers relations, a little bit of everything. So, it sounds like basically every week is a blur.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. For the listeners, I was kind of, it's too bad that we

missed recording the conversation we were having with Shannon on the front end of this episode

before we actually hit the record button because it was funny. We just started shooting a breeze

about cars and we were laughing, you know, as individual enthusiasts laughing about how we're

all on text chains. Shannon included with buddies sharing listings and all that kind of thing. And

so, you know, clearly, Shannon, you're an individual enthusiast as well as somebody who's

working in what I would say is, you know, almost like a dream job. I'm sure it has tons of challenges,

but like you were square in the world of Porsche, which is cool. But, you know, what do you like

most about being in the position you're in? That's what we were joking a little bit. I mean,

Monday morning, we had to move our career GT or we just, we're painting it right now at our body

shop. Porsche or Porsche Certified Collision Center, mind you. So, we're painting at our body shop

and we had to get it where the tax were doing all the mechanical work to the car. It had to be

driven two or three miles from the shop to the body shop and I quickly volunteered myself to do

that. And you jumped on the grenade, huh? Nice. That car with cold tires, ordinary weather, no doors,

no airbags, no seatbelts, no nothing on it, brand new KW suspension that was set on track mode. I

figured that that one out. That is a hard car to handle. And when you know, you can just go flying

out of the car. The front seat's not even attached. I mean, it's so I know I get to do fun stuff

like that periodically in market office at work. Hey, Shannon, I want to circle back on the Gen 5

dealership. So, I live in New Hampshire and my local dealership, Porsche Nashua, opened up their

Gen 5 dealership. You're familiar with it? Yeah. So, Al Heath and our buddies. Nice. Yeah. So, I don't

It's almost, it's like going to a Porsche Experience Center. It's almost like Porsche,

it's like a Porsche museum and a Porsche like a toy room and a dealership where you can buy Porsche

and like this like, it's almost like a movie theater that you can watch Porsche being worked on.

So, could you just let the audience know like what is Gen 4 to Gen 5? Like what is a Gen 5

dealership in terms of what does it mean for them? Like why is it so cool?

You know, Porsche every 10 years or so, they go through a architectural rebranding to try to

make sure their physical footprint represents kind of what they're doing in the world. So,

you'll notice any Gen 5 facility, the front has the kind of louvers that open up and show inside

the facility. So, Gen 5 is much brighter, much warmer. They really,

Gen 4 is very kind of cold and gray and white and too stark. And so, Gen 5, they opened it up,

but if you notice the lines on the Gen 5 facility mimic the red light bar of 992.

But that's meant to look like the rear end of a Porsche if you're looking at it from a distance.

But inside, it's much more about community. I mean, they want us to have the Porsche Club to

have their annual meetings at the dealership. We have a whole thousand square foot room just set

up for community events, the seating area. It's really meant to be a hub for all things Porsche.

So, we're going to start hosting customer appreciation breakfast at the store and just

doing more things to just bring people in because of all the brands we carry.

We throw out a hot dog stand at the Porsche store with some cool cars. We'll have a thousand people

there. You can't do that with any other brand. And so, Gen 5 facility is for us, it was a huge

expansion because the business has grown so much. So, it kind of meets our current needs.

But it's also a better representation of what Porsche is all about. It's an aspirational brand

that's still very inclusive. We want more people to get involved with the brand. We want younger

kids to get involved with the brand. We love sharing it. It's not meant to be Ferrari. That's

like, no, don't touch that. That's not for you. Porsche is for everybody.

Dude, Will, you have to see this. You walk into the lobby. There's a 935 there. There's a 912,

a classic car. There's a 356 speedster. You can walk up and you can just check it out,

go upstairs as a bar. There's a sitting room. There's a conference room with

Papita chairs overlooking the workshop. It's a cool place to hang, Shannon. It really is.

They have a coffee bar on the first floor. It is really the type of place that you would... Actually,

I did this when we first opened here in New Hampshire. I went down with two of my buddies and

I wanted to show them around. What's so cool is the service advisors, Dave and everyone down there,

they were like, oh, yeah, you want a tour? They leave their desk and they walk you around. They're

so proud to show you everything. It's very cool. I'm super excited for you, Shannon.

I heard a rumor that if you open a Gen 5 dealership, that actually changes your allocation

from Porsche. Is that true? Yeah. There's a lot of nitpicky details to it, but this is

supplemental facility allocation. You do a facility investment. It's a whole lot different ball game

to revamp a remodel or build a Porsche store versus a Maserati, or Audi, or Infiniti.

So with that, they help you out with increasing your allocation of cars, but there's a lot of

parameters you got to follow within that. They had it pretty well dialed down. You can't just

they reward the dealers that invest in the brand. I mean, that's they should.

So Shannon, I understand. Let's get out of the business mode for a moment and let's talk a

little bit about your enthusiasm for the cars themselves. Prior to the episode, Connor, your

marketing gentleman sent us over a list of the cars that are in your personal collection.

The list is very long, so I don't know that we just want to read it off for the listeners,

but I mean, I would love to hear you just talk a little bit about it, maybe what

a couple of your favorites are. I don't know. Talk to us.

You almost have to break it up into like air-cooled and water-cooled.

Miss, let's start with the Porsche tractor, Shannon.

We had to buy that. We bought that car. We bought that tractor of Peacart Market.

I'm they made them. They made them in green, so all the cars in our collection are green.

And to me, that makes it much more difficult to build a collection if it's constrained, right?

So if you're constrained to a certain colorway, that makes it much more difficult. You can't just,

I mean, we could go and build a world-class collection overnight,

but when it's a certain color, it makes it more exciting, more fun.

So we have our 61 tractor, and they did make them in green, so I'm considering repainting

it, signal green, which I think would be fun. But we have a tractor. We have a 1970, 911, this

been, that was actually my grandfather's car unrelated to the dealership. He was a medical

doctor. He was a surgeon, and he had 3911s, and my grandmother said, this is ridiculous.

You don't need these 3911s. You need to get rid of these cars. So he had a red, a white, and a blue.

He sold the blue and the white, and then he took the red one, and he took it to my dad and said,

look, you're to hide this at the dealership. And Porsche in 1981 was a totally different company.

He said, you're to take this at the dealership and make no mistake, this is still my car,

but I need you to hide it from your mother-in-law. We've had about 1979, 911 since 81.

Then we got the 78 Turbo that we're remodding, doing a full restoration on. That's a paint to

sample 1978 paint to sample 930 Turbo that a guy, 1978 did paint to sample Buick medium green.

So he went to Porsche in 1978 and said, paint this to match my Buick, which is pretty wild.

Classy. White, white with like velour insert, seeds, somebody that's so 1978.

Then we have our 89 four-screen speedster that we bought from a collector in France.

Then we have our 92 Met RS that I bought from a buddy mine. I love that Met car.

We're going to preserve that next year's challenge. Then we have our 92, 964 RS that I bought

from Gooding a few years ago, and we totally remodded that car to a 38. It's doing like 400

horsepower of the wheels. It's a monster. We did a chroma flare paint on it. We're shipping that

at Ice Race next month. And we got one in Colorado and big sky. Yeah.

We got our buddy Lee Keane, a factory race driver. He's going to be

driving it for us out there. So that'll be a lot of fun. Let me get our green 928,

GTS. Well, then we have the 993 Turbo four-screen over Nephrite green interior.

Then we have a 01 GT2 that's in Europe right now. It's not 25 years old, so we kept it in Europe.

I've got to drive that car on the Urbark Range a couple of times, and that's GT2.

Manta, we shipped it to Manta too and now to do tires and suspension.

Is it as much of a monster as they say, the GT2?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, pre-suspension work from Manta, you're pushing that thing on the

Autobahn. I took that thing up to the Autobahn when I was there in October.

I didn't get 300 kilometers an hour, but we got 175 miles an hour, which is pretty fast in that car.

Oh. But if a lot more confident in that car, pre-manta suspension at the front end would get

a little light at 150, and that could get kind of nerve-wracking.

Then we have a Berster Green 997 GT2 that was originally a Porsche family car,

it's a Ferdinand P.X. Junior car. Then we have the 992 Oration Green Sport Classic

and the Berster Green GT2 RS. I bought from a fellow dealer of mine, buddy of mine who

called and said, I know you like green Porsches. You'll buy this. All right, fine.

Well, we're on 0.16R. That was a cool car. It came from a collector on a Puerto Rico. He had two.

He had one he drove and one he stored. I'm trying to think about it.

You're forgetting about the Safari Cayenne, dude. 2013. Come on.

This is a car at Bussmer, traded in, hit 350,000 miles on it. He traded in and it was worth like

$5,000. We just usually tricked it out. The 958 diesel runs unbelievable off-road. It is an absolute

beast off-roading. Torque for days. The joke on this podcast. I'm a huge Safari guy. I just love

everything. I like taking cars where they shouldn't go. I actually have a 958. It's an

it's not a diesel, but I often toy with the idea of putting on bigger tires and doing some fun

shit with it. Did Lee Keane, he didn't even consult with you on that because that came to you as a

trade-in? Yeah, that was a local trade-in. I mean, I'm sure we probably talked to Lee. I mean,

Lee's on one of the group texts and I get all random hours of the day like, what about this?

What about that? He has forced me to ask all week long. But now we used one of Lee's

Safari providers for some of the body work and some of the work on that car was sourced,

not directly through Lee, but through some of his vendors, I guess you said.

So for those of you that don't know, Lee Keane, in addition to being a race car driver,

has his own company where he outfits air-cooled 911s for Safari work and they are renowned for

being incredibly sound, well-built machines that far exceed what you think they could do in the

dirt. And so he's quite the name. Shannon, I have a question for you. This might make you

think for a minute. But again, thinking about the audience out there listening and your dealer,

so take off your dealer hat and just put on your Porsche owner hat. For the everyday guy out there,

what's one of the most reliable Porsche that they can buy? We get that a lot, whether it's a

generation that came in, generation of Boxster, generation of 911. Every little generation has

its little foibles here and there that you have to look out for. But if someone came to you and

said like, Hey, I just want to buy a car that works. I understand there's maintenance, but I

don't want to jump down a hole. What would you say for them to go out and try? I mean,

2024, McConn, two liter turbo. I'm kidding. I mean, but this...

When you think about meal kit companies, what do you see? Probably long,

complicated recipes and subscriptions you can't escape. But with the new Blue Apron,

we're doing meal delivery differently. No subscription needed. Faster, easier meals.

And the same dedication to quality we've always had. Shop 100 plus meals at BlueApron.com. Get 50%

off your first two orders with code Apron 50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BlueApron.com

slash terms for more. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible,

financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who

switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit Progressive.com to see if

you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will

vary, not available in all states or situations. That two liter turbo.com, I mean, like Volkswagen,

Volkswagen and Audi and Pond, everything like that. That is probably the most rock solid.

I mean, you know, people hate on the Macan, but I mean, the Macan is... I'm not a Macan guy,

but the Macan really has a really nice driving position if you want a small SUV. Reliable...

My local guy who I'm close with, he runs the shop at the dealership. He said, if I had to pick

one car, if someone said, give me one Porsche, that's the most reliable Porsche you can give me,

it would be a Boxster four cylinder base motor. He goes, we never see those in the shop ever,

except for anything for oil changes. That's it. I mean, I would say, you know, the more base,

the better. So, you know, the longer... And this is any car question, right? The longer the car is

out, the more that the manufacturer is able to work through any of the little grim ones in there.

So, you know, I would say first generation 718 is going to be totally different than the end of

the life that are just now coming out in 2025. Like those cars had all the bugs worked out.

They've really had millions of miles of real world testing done, and they knew all the technical

bulletins, all the stuff. So, I would say the more base cars are going to be a lot more simplistic,

and the longer they are in the life cycle, the more that they're most likely... Most of the time,

you're going to see major stuff is going to be electrical grim ones nowadays. And that's just

with all the software they're putting into these cars. I mean, you know, a 2025 Taycan is going to

be so much more reliable than a 2020 Taycan. Because, I mean, we're doing battery replacements in

the 2020s, and then they totally shift... They saw the writing on the wall and shift the entire

battery technology in 2022. But it takes a couple years to figure that out. So, to try and true

technology cars, let's say, you're pretty spot on with a base Cayman. I mean, I've always loved a

straight manual ship base Cayman. I think those are some of the best cars on the market.

So, the tried and true recommendation from... That we've heard our whole lives,

if don't buy the first year of any new generation, does hold up. So, that's good to hear.

Well, it's not... Most of the time, it's fixable stuff. It's just...

It's going to be annoying, you know, to work through that.

There's a higher likelihood of... We saw what Panamera is this year, or this time last year.

Brand new model came out and has some little things that needed updates. And you're going to

have to go into the shop to get this stuff updated. There's nothing wrong with the car,

it just... There's stuff they didn't see in the manufacturing process that need to be addressed.

So, it's more of an annoyance than leave you on the side of the road in the engine blew up type

of situation. Sure. Yeah. I mean, well, Porsche has a reputation for being one of the most reliable

brands when you look at all the brands. So, there's a reason for that for sure.

Will, unless you have any other questions, I'd love to start talking about Platica a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, what got me... I wanted to kind of circle back to this idea of the Gen 5 facility

and supporting an idea of community. And that does bring us to Platica, which is an event that

Harper puts on, Porsche event. And so, Shannon, I'd like to hear you talk to us about this event

and maybe let our viewers know, listeners know, where they can learn more because it sounds freaking

amazing based on what I've heard about it. So, Porsche Platica is something that was really

pushed by PC&A initially. So, Porsche wants all their dealers to do these place events. And it's

kind of lifestyle community events that they want you to do. And they have all sorts of different

examples. Did y'all ever go to a sports car together fest? Remember that in 2018? Porsche had

their 70th anniversary and it was a sports car together fest. And every dealer hosted an event

in like June of 2018, I think. And whenever we've done the sports car together fest on their

Porsche's 70th anniversary, 75th anniversary, people love that. They love to come out. They'd

love to get the t-shirt, the sticker. They bring the kids. They really have fun. And

Porsche kind of had a loose idea and they said, you can do yoga in the showroom or you can do this.

And I said, you know, all customers don't, they don't want to do yoga in their showroom. They

go to their yoga studio, do yoga. That's not really what I get the point. So, let's do a

different spin on that. And there really is no great curated Porsche enthusiast-based event

on the East Coast. I mean, Lee Keen did one River Works a couple years ago,

and that was fantastic. But, you know, you have DRT in Miami. This is happening next week. And then

you have, I mean, Al and Sunil and those guys do a great job. But all across the Eastern Seaboard,

there's really no great Porsche events. And the West Coast has all these really well done,

really fun events. We've been to four or five Luke to cult events, and they're fantastic. It is

so much fun. You get to hang out with people like mine and see old friends. So we said, let's do

something more unique that is more of a curated Porsche enthusiast show. And that's when Connor

went deep and used the connections he has to absolutely, I mean, we brought out some amazing

cars, race cars, air-cooled, water-cooled, specialty cars, I mean, from all over the place,

and people really wanted to bring their cars out. So the first event in 24 was a massive success.

And so we said, this thing is, this is something that has legs to kind of live on its own. So we

didn't want it to be like a dealership event, right? So we kind of put it off on its own.

And it's one of some of the independent that stands on some two feet. So Porsche Platica really is

something we invite other independent retailers in, like Merritt Partners out of Atlanta,

Graham Ray Hall out of Indy, the Roof Guys out of Miami, see Ryan Friedman from New York. We

brought all these guys that are just really passionate Porsche guys and brought them all

together and made the event more about just the brand itself and not about promoting,

nothing's for sale, right? It's not, it's very organic. And so last year, or yeah, 2025,

we started having all these career GTs coming and we ended up having 18 career GTs in Knoxville.

And it was like, holy smokes, this is a world record career GT gathering. And it just kind

of happened organically. This is something that makes it fun is to have a kind of a themed vehicle.

So in 2026, we're highlighting the 10th anniversary of the 911 R991 edition.

And so we have just a crazy lineup of, we were, Mosshog wanted to get 67 911 Rs at the event

just February the 1967, but that's aggressive. They made 20 of the 1967 Rs. And we got over

five of them committed already. I mean, out of that's crazy. We had five coming already. Wow.

We had a team number of white Rs and then over 10 of the paint sample Rs coming.

So the events, it's very well curated, really quality or quantity. We limit ourselves to 60

or 75 cars, very artfully placed. And then, you know, it's about a 3,500, 3,500 person event.

It's a full day. We're going to use the food and booze and it's really just

come and appreciate the cars. There's a lot of photographers, a lot of enjoyment around that.

And it's in a quarry, right? Yeah. So we...

We really went out, we went big the first year and it was like, oh my God, this blew up.

So each year we up the amount of time. It's a wedding venue typically, but it's an old

Marvel quarry. So the backdrops are absolutely amazing and come in and we have a guy who,

he rebuilds, he'll build sets for like the masters. So he'll come in and he'll build these

kind of sets, right? And so though the backdrops say the same, but all the different features

at the event are featured around the car. So it still changes. The cars change every year.

I wanted to have some car come back year over year and car goes, no repeats, no repeats. So

it really is very organic, not commercial. There's no selling of anything. You know,

it's about the cars. It's about community. It's about hanging out and

learning a little bit and inviting more people into the brand. So I saw some of the photography,

I guess, from last year on the website. It's the website. It's PorschePlatica.com, right?

Porsche-Platica.com. I mean, you can Google it. It's the only one that'll show up.

Got it. And we'll put a link in the description under the video version of this podcast as well.

So it's taking place on May 3rd. Is that right?

Yeah. It's coming up May 3rd, which is Sunday. We have a private event for exhibitors, people

that bring their cars in on Saturday and then we'll have like a mountain drive. We'll do a drive

on Saturday and then events all day Sunday, take us to go live in April, March or April.

Pretty sure of March. We have Corral. We have a special Porsche-only Corral in them,

just like Lufka Colton. I mean, the Corral is where you see a lot of amazing stuff there as well.

So that's where Will and I parked. We were in the Corral and honestly,

as much as I love Lufka Colton, we talked about this at this most recent one on the East Coast.

You walked around that parking garage. You saw some funky stuff that really blew your mind and

that was as fun in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. So we have Corral parking,

a lot of different amenities for everybody. So May 3rd, Knoxville, Tennessee, right?

Yep. Yep. Cool. Love you there. Of course. And right now we're releasing a series of

owner stories about their 911 R. So Rory Angrum, Ryan Hardwick, who just won the GT3,

Le Mans winner. He's bringing his R. Graham Rahall talking about his Tag Oiler R. I don't know if

y'all have seen that car, but it's a lookup Tag Oiler 911 R. It's one of the wildest specs

ever. I mean, it's insane. So on Instagram, as we can find most of our most recent content,

but we videoed a series of 911 R owner stories about what their viewpoint is of the car,

why they're coming to Platica, et cetera. And so that's kind of a little quick preview about

what we have coming up. Shannon, I must say, man, you're in many ways living the dream.

It's not bad. I drive a Taycan every day, but I have a 992 Sport Classic and a Ration

Green in my garage. And whenever I'm taking the kids to school, I always ask, I said,

you want to take the 911? They said, yes. Perfect. Don't tell your mother.

You're doing something right, man. I love that.

Yeah. Well, I have enjoyed everything we've discussed, man. It is absolutely fascinating

to me. And so I, for one, definitely appreciate you spending some time with us on this thing.

Yeah, no problem at all. I appreciate y'all having me on. I always love listening to y'all's videos

and getting into the minutiae of 986s versus 981s. I mean, these guys know so much more about this

stuff than I'll do. We're making up half of it, Shannon. Just know that.

Yeah. Well, I'll have to go on Google to find out what y'all have in your head.

You know what they say, Shannon. If you say anything with confidence, half of people believe

you. So that's how we do it. But it really has been such a pleasure. We'll look forward to

having you back on again. And I think as far as Porsche Platica goes, it's something that

everyone is probably going to be on your website checking out. I think it would be really,

really cool to see it in person. So thank you for sharing that with us, my friend. And

thanks for being on Renthousias Radio. Thanks for having me, guys. Awesome, man. Thanks.

You look forward to catch you on the next episode of Renthousias Radio.

ACAS powers the world's best podcast. Here's a show that we recommend.

So what does it mean to live a good life?

Really accepting the fact that happiness requires a little bit of training.

These are the questions we explore on the top-ranked Good Life Project podcast,

which has been downloaded and viewed over a hundred million times.

Spend your time and energy on the things that actually matter to you.

Remember what's already good and stay curious about what could be good.

On Good Life Project, we sit down with leading voices and legends in health,

art, science, spirituality, entertainment, industry, and culture.

Well, I'll just say what just came to mind, which is to be careful with yourself.

Be yourself. You know what? It's not easy always, but it's simple.

Check out Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts now.

Porsche Dealership Secrets Revealed - Interview with Top Porsche Dealer Shannon Harper

About this episode

Porsche GT3 Touring

Porsche 912

Porsche tractor

Porsche 930 Turbo

Porsche 964 RS

Porsche 992 Sport Classic

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Eleven After Nine | A Porsche Culture Podcast