I believe Porsche has no other choice but to move forward. From my earlier post there where 3 confirmed for the T.O. area so far only a couple of serious interest here in Caglary. If Porsche moves forward they need to think of the client and how they can give them the "Ultimate Experience" fly the potential clients to Germany for the weekend to pick colors options, tour of the factory and to meet the Team behind the 918 then upon delivery which will be 2012. All the owners should be flown back to Stuttgart for the 2-3 days to personally pick up there 918 go through the Porsche Museum have lunch, dinner, spend time with Porsche Chief Test Drive to get on hand experience with the car on their test track and then turn them loose to tour Germany. I think everybody is getting the idea, If you are spending close to a 1 Million porsche needs to step it up. I believe the buyers are there but they want to have the Experience to go along with it.

Those are some of my thoughts on the 918

 

Perhaps one thing they could do is return to topflight racing (Le Mans Prototype) or venture into F1...

 

Just to put things in perspective....

the 959 was first sold in 1986 with a price tag of $225,000 ( wikipedia source...)
If you take the inflation into account,
$225,000 in '86 has the same buying power as $444,542.77 in 2010

By the same token, 445,000 in 2003 ( when pricing was announced for the CGT) would have the same Buying Power as 573,068.68 in 2013...

So yes they get more expensive, but it is more costly to build them as well.
Honestly, I do not think that the 959 is a good comparo as Porsche never made any money on them. Nowadays, it has to be profitable to be put into production.... Just my .002

 

Could not agree more with the Le Mans bit, but please NO F1!...especially after rumored buyout offer from a consortium that includes a company with Ferrari ties.

 

...infact they have just launched the Panamera Diesel...

 

Good point. I brought this up in a thread a few weeks back and even with inflation porsche is entering a new category:

Using a few online inflation calculators, the 440k MSRP of the Type 980 in 2004 would be roughly equal to a $515,489 MSRP in 2011.

Meanwhile, 845k in 2011 would be roughly equal to $721,256 in 2004.

Enzo in 2002 had MSRP of $659,330. Right now that MSRP would be $811,093.

So roughly speaking, the 918 is still MSRPing higher than the Enzo would have nowadays.

The Pagani Huayra is tentatively priced at 850k british pounds. Obviously it isn't a direct conversion, but that is roughly 1.4 million US dollars, which in 2004 would have been $1.2 million dollars.

One more set of numbers for you. Porsche priced the CGT in 2004 with the intention of selling 1500 units, but by my recollection they only made 1270 total. I remember reading an article that by falling short of the original 1500 unit target, CGT prices counterintuitively dropped for about 4-5 months (I can't confirm this but maybe CGT owners can verify/deny the veracity of that statement). So the question is, for anyone buying the 918, is having 350 fewer 918s made (than the CGT) worth the additional 330k you will pay?

 

i bet birdman has his name down for one

 

I was in the Downtown Porsche getting the CGT serviced and they said ONE person had paid 200K deposit - no mention of three in that dealer.

 

it will be really interesting to see the final production numbers on this car, so far looks to be a complete debacle sales wise.

 

I have a feeling that quite a few of us that backed out will be getting calls. I will be happy to talk.