Porsche’s lineup now includes a line of SUVs, starting with the Cayenne, and now with the Macan.

When I first learned that Porsche was going to get into the SUV business, it certainly took me by surprise. i remember cringing! Of course, the Panamera sedan has been introduced as well. Now I’ve driven a Panamera Turbo, and I will tell you it is an incredibly impressive car, performance-wise. However, it might be one of the ugliest sedans I’ve ever seen. Anybody who says his car looks good really needs to get their eyes checked. The back end looks like it belongs on another car entirely. Or not on any car at all. Also, the way Porsche designs their interiors nowadays, I feel that they use way too many buttons. The buttons all look so similar. I can’t see how one would ever get used to all of these buttons easily at all. I would imagine that many owners don’t use 95% of them often enough to get used to them. Nevertheless, Porsche’s foray into the SUV and sedan world have proven to be quite successful as they’ve certainly accounted for a very large portion of Porsche’s annual profit. We certainly see them all over the place, but these vehicles are being bought by people who want something a little bit more sporty than their garden-variety sedan and SUV choices, and of course, carry Porsche emblems on them. They a likely far from being purists.

I find that with Porsche’s current sports car lineup, there’s just far too many variants of every model. If you go on Porsche’s website and try to configure a car, there seems to be a hundred different variations of the 911 that you can configure. It gets a little confusing, and certainly makes the higher level models less special because they look so much like their garden-variety versions. Only when you get to the very special versions of the 911 do they get more differentiated, such as with a GT3 RS and models of that nature.

Just like any manufacturer, Porsche needs to remain highly profitable to stay in business. Unfortunately, when a brand is trying to become more mainstream, they can very easily lose some of the magic that made them special in the 1st place. It’s a fine line – stay special, or become mainstream. Porsche is dangerously close to being mainstream, if they aren’t already.

I’d like to see Porsche start to streamline their line-up a bit. I see no issue with continuing on with the 911 moniker, as it’s such a storied model that really has defined Porsche. I also don’t have a problem with them keeping a similar design theme going forward, but they really should try to differentiate each generation just a tad more. I’d like to be able to look at a 911 and easily identify what era is from, and I don’t find I’m able to do so with the last few generations of the car.

I did get to drive a Boxster S, I forgot what year it was, but found it to be quite a satisfying little car. It’s very nicely packaged, and that’s what gives this car its magic. It doesn’t have an overabundance of power, but the power level is very nicely matched up with its handling and braking capabilities. It’s a fun little car that really reminds one of cars from the past that were more minimalist. There are far too many manufacturers nowadays that just put more powerful engines in their cars and call it a day, not elevating braking and handling levels to go along with the power upgrades. They really are missing the mark. An example of this would be earlier Mercedes AMG variants, or more currently, the Dodge Hellcat.

Minimalist cars that are nicely packaged are cars like a Mazda Miata. It’s a very nicely balanced, and that’s what makes it so much fun. It certainly will not win any power awards, but it’s a very fun car to drive just because of how nicely packaged it is. Another car from my past that would fall into this segment would be something like a Toyota MR2.

I just don’t want to see Porsche lose its way and become a brand that becomes over-diluted and loses its magic.

So even though I spent 12 years selling Ferraris, Porsche was the first exotic brand that really got my juices going!

When I was growing up in the 1980s, the sports cars that I more commonly saw were Camaros, Trans Ams, and Mustangs. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, so exotic cars were not around very often. I would get pretty excited any time I would ever see a Porsche, even more so a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Heck, we would even get excited at the sighting of a Corvette, as they were fairly rare in our neck of the woods.

The first quasi-exotic car brand that I formed a love relationship with was Porsche. In my neighborhood, we would see one every once in awhile and I became very fond of them. I had a newspaper route as a kid, and I remember one of the houses had a Porsche 924 in the driveway, which was a newer model at the time. Now we all know that the 924 was nothing exceptional in terms of performance, but it was still a cool car to see. Cars can be exotic just by being the only one of its kind in the surrounding neighborhood. The era that I am talking about is predominantly the 1980s. The model of Porsche that really got me going was the almighty 911 Turbo, but I also had quite a fondness for the 928. The 928 was not a Porsche purists’ car, but are still cool none the less. It was fairly futuristic looking, nothing at all like a 911, and unusual to see. I must admit I’ve never gotten to drive a 928, but I’m still curious to this day to do so.

In high school, I had a buddy who ended up buying a used 944. This was the very first Porsche I ever got to drive. The thing I remember about this car was how well it handled. Power was nothing to write home about, although certainly better than the average car. This car’s real strength was the way it handled. In fact, I remember reading in one of the car magazines of the day a road test for the best handling car in the world, and the 944 won.

The 911 Turbo, starting in the late 1970s, to me, was an incredibly muscular looking car. The way it’s rear fenders flared out and the addition of the whale tail just give it a menacing look. Anytime you read about a 911 Turbo, you would always read about how its rear end would exhibit a pendulum effect when one lifted off of the throttle mid-curve. If a driver was not highly skilled, it was not uncommon for the car to go off the road, back end first. I never did get to drive this era of a 911 Turbo, although I did finally get to drive one in 2006. 2006 was the second to last year of the air-cooled motors, and it also had all-wheel-drive – which helped immensely in keeping the back end in check. If I recall correctly, it produced 400 horsepower. That was a ton of power for its day, and I was blown away by how well the car performed. Just getting to drive it was an absolute dream.

One thing I thoroughly enjoyed during my career as a Ferrari salesperson was the fact that so many people valued my opinion on their other brands of cars that they owned. I would often get asked to drive somebody’s car just so they can get my opinion on it. This was a request I don’t think I ever denied. Later on, I got to drive a 911 Turbo S – the first variation that incorporated the PDK dual-clutch transmission. This thing was an absolute rocket ship with its all wheel drive but it felt a little clinical. It didn’t really invoke a whole lot of passion. Also, in this era of Porsches, the turbos were not different enough from the garden-variety non-turbo 911 cosmetically. A lot of this has to do with the “whale tail”. Once they got into active aerodynamics, the tails they produced would pop up at higher speeds. To me, it lost the aggression that the earlier 911 Turbos possessed. It was as if they were trying to minimize it, or conceal it. I felt that they should have kept it as something prominent because it really differentiated the Turbo from the rest of the 911s. The only tails that I find carry on this tradition today would belong to something like a GT3, or the last generation GT2 – something that’s fixed and prominent.

The holy grail for me in the Porsche world was getting to drive a Carrera GT. Sadly, this model has become associated with the death of Paul Walker, as this is what he died in. I will tell you that it’s the most exhilarating Porsche I have ever driven. Having gotten to drive a Ferrari Enzo prior to driving this Carrera GT, I got to feel how the most raw form of a manufacturer’s car could feel. The Carrera GT was Porsche’s Ferrari Enzo. It was just as raw and untamed as the Enzo, but done in a Porsche fashion. The clutch was especially tricky as it was ceramic. I read quite a bit about the clutch and the launch procedure prior to ever getting to drive one, and learned that you were not supposed to give it throttle when trying to take off from a standing start. When one is used to driving a manual transmission, one is very used to doing the exact opposite of that. It was quite difficult for your brain to to allow you to do what you needed to do to not stall the car. I was able to get it going, I think the second try or maybe even the first. I just adhered to what I had read and got off the line rather easily. You could hear all the pebbles kicking up inside the wheel wells. You could hear all the mechanical noises coming out of the engine bay. It was a very raw exotic car driving experience. And the thing was brutally fast! It was the type of car that you had no business carrying a cell phone with you. You do not need any distractions whatsoever in a car like this. Just because one had the money to buy ones didn’t necessarily mean they were qualified to drive it. I cannot tell you how many Ferraris are sold to customers who were really buying them for status symbols rather than for the performance machines that they are. They think they can just hop in the car and drive one on a casual basis while sending their friends text messages or talking on the phone. The reality is that these cars require your full attention. They were far too easy to drive fast. This Carrera GT was such a car. It definitely required your full attention, or you could find yourself in some serious trouble very quickly.

There was a time where Carrera GT’s could be bought for relatively little money considering what level of car they were, and how much they sold for when new. In today’s automotive market though, prices of more special cars have gone through the roof. They really have become unattainable for so many people where not that long ago, they were somewhat attainable. I think the bubble will have to burst at some point because it just can’t keep going in this direction. It’s not sustainable. So having said that, perhaps a Carrera GT may one day be attainable again.