All cars are buil as a compromise, I think Porsche has done a wonderful job at building the car the customers want. A lot of the people posting need to get out to a C&C event or track day and see what's going on in the real world, not just magazines and on the internet. The Porsche is so easy to tweek to be what you want your car to be. The bulk of owners don't want a track ready suspension we want a car that's sporty with a great build quality. There are people that track their cars and are concerned with performance, and there are tuners that will supply them with unbelievable power. I talked to the wife of an owner of a 700hp car and she said it drove as easy as the stock car. So the answer to your question, in the real world people that want to track their cars are going to change the suspension to what they can get local support for, tires to suit the track they're at, and up the power to whatever they want. My turbo has enough power to put a smile on my face every time I drive it, a nice enough interior, plus a comfortable ride that my wife likes riding with me. To me driving a sports car with an automatic just wouldn't cut it, I might as well buy another Caddy or Pickup. But to each his own, some of you people just need to turn off your computer and get out and go to an event and enjoy the cars. I just put 912 miles on my car over the weekend, ended up stuck in a snow storm and enjoyed every minute of it.

 

After reading the responses here I thought I should chime in.

Firstly, the GTR is ugly, heavy, too computerized and there are no definitive numbers for production examples. BUT the GTR is a great car. Why? The GTR is another automotive first. Its the first normal production car to have all these systems in a high horsepower application.

Still remember that this is a first. Remember the F1 gearbox on the F355 and how problematic it was? Ferrari has solved it with the F430 and now all high performance variants of Ferraris only have F1 gearboxes.

Porsche is developing a DCT type gearbox as well. The longevity of these units is still not proven and the tolerances are still unknown. BMW does not a dual clutch system available. The only German production cars are the Audi A3/VW GTI (2.0FSI engines) and the new MB SL63 (which still hasn't hit the sales floor yet). Mitsubishi only now will offer DCT in the EVO.

Rather than "being the best" and "trumping the establishment" Nissan has simply beaten others to the punch. This is the first volume production vehicle to offer computers, all wheel drive and DCT in a higher horsepower application under six figures. The AWD is based on ATTESA, which originated in the late 1980s.

Other manufacturers will follow suit. Porsche will probably release the vanilla 998 with a DCT gearbox first and then move to high horsepower applications. BMW is working to release DCT for the M3. Mercedes has already started the ball. VAG started with the Veyron's transmission and only now its trickling down the line.

The GTR is a great car TODAY. A few years from now it will be a nominal competitor in the marketplace. The GTR is simply a product of competition. And this competition is what allows other manufactures and ultimately, the high performance car itself, to evolve.

So stop feeling cheated guys. If you really want the BEST numbers then buy a GTR. But don't complain in a few years when the newest Porsche trumps its latest iteration.

Besides, if a 4 year old Porsche can still put a smile on my face then somebody in Stuttgart was doing something right.

EDIT: Also have some of you guys considered that the BMW 335i, Infiniti G37, Subaru WRX STI, Mitsubishi EVO and Ford Mustang GT all have similar power output to the Porsche Carrera? Yet people still line up in droves to lease/buy one. There has to be redeeming qualities in Porsches otherwise they'd be broke! These competitors are also priced below Porsche's offerings. The only difference in this example is that a high end Nissan competes with a high end Porsche in terms of "magazine/publicity numbers".

In short, the almighty GTR has been debunked. Its simply ahead of the curve rather than changing it... and I don't blame people for lining up in droves to buy one.

 

Great post, you've near on hit the nail on the head with that response.

 

This post deserves a thread on its own to end all annoying TT v GTR posts.

Nicely put Arju!!

 

Wow, sensitive Porsche egos are sensitive. All that effort to make it sound like Nissan just got here first so they don't deserve much credit. Not to mention your idea of Porsche reclaiming the performance lead is just speculation but hey I guess if it helps you sleep at night.

Care to elaborate on what you mean when you say the GT-R has been debunked?

Debunked as in the GT-R V-Spec ran the ring in 7:25 which is faster than any production Porsche ever?

 

I've been searching the internet for a picture of a dead horse being hit with a baseball bat but couldn't find one

 

 

I've said it before but ill keep it simple.The GTR and The Turbo,on a performance level they are similar (according to reviews),other then that they are in their own niches,just think about (am to lazy to explain right now lol).

Anyways Porsche ideal response to the new Skyline GTR and future Super Sports GT,would be for the to make a real GT,aka 4 seats,a boot,front engine etc,they can easily do it if they want too (THEY DONT HAVE TO),however it would be very interesting. They have the engine's they can use from the Cayenne (the Cayenne has a wide range of engine's and they rock,just drive any Cayenne,no SUV on he plant can out handle it performance wise).

Anyways both cars Rock (the GTR is actually better looking in person).

 

Really!? I'm so glad you told me that because mine failed just recently. Best get it booked in huh? I was just going to carry on driving.... no, wait, I couldn't could I?....

The point was that a chain will break at its weakest point.

 

The GT3 was designed to be able change gear sets at the track, A good mechanic CAN work on it.
We are not sensitve just tired of every Magazine saying Porsche Got SPanked (See this months Road and Track)
What gets me is the reported Japanese Version that was at the Ring with hopped up tires. Then the Road and Track issue with the Factory NIssan driver.
Now there is reports of a victory Edition of the GT-R. Nothing is constant wih his car. We will have to wait tii its in REAL peoples hands and we get some track reports.
We just would like to know the truth, instead of all the hype. Competiion is fine it makes the GT3 a better car.

 

Aren't you tired of continuously proving my point?

 

As much as this has been done to death, I think looking at the GTR vs 997 debate from an economic angle is quite revealing. Money makes the world go round, as they say.

We know Porsche has the highest profit margins of any car company, but why? How much does it cost them to build a 997 or TT really? I have no idea, but some basic economic assumptions dramatically point out the difference between what Porsche and Nissan are up to, and why Porsche won’t build a 997 TT club-sport. Porsche is making money, while Nissan is making a commercial:

It costs an awful lot of money to design and tool up to build for a car these days. If you’re Zonda, buying your engine from Mercedes and not investing in much production tooling, you might get away with ~30 million? Spread that over 100 cars and you’re looking at 300k each, leaving the balance of the purchase price for production costs and profit (if there is such a thing at these volumes). Run these numbers and you’ll see why all the small supercar guys buy their engines rather than build them, and why Lambo is now platform sharing with Audi, etc- R&D is a huge part of the cost.

Porsche, on the other hand, is designing and tooling up to build ~40k 911s per year over ~5 years, or ~200K total cars. Of these the bulk are the regular 911s, and I’ll take a WAG and say they spend a few hundred million developing the chassis, etc and spread that over 180K 911s. Then you include the fact that they’re also sharing the front end, basic motor architecture, etc with the Boxster/ Cayman which account for another ~150k cars per design cycle you get further economies of scale. With these numbers the R&D costs effectively get lost- you’re only spending in the range of a grand per car. And you’ve done high volume, automated production tooling that lets you build the cars very cheaply- probably in the range of 30k per copy? Remember the fact that it doesn’t (or at least didn’t) cost Porsche any more to produce a base 911 than it cost to build a Boxster. This seems fairly obvious when you realize that they share most of the same basic components, and where they don’t it’s often simply a matter of building the parts in different sizes (engine displacements, etc) for the different cars. It might actually cost Porsche less to put the big 3.8L motor in all the Boxsters, etc, as they would spread tooling and R&D costs across all those cars. The GT3/2/TT cars build on this platform and a basic motor architecture that was designed ~20 years ago now, so the incremental cost isn’t as high as it should be, even though the parts are more expensive and the volumes lower.

Now look at the GTR, which is hand built on a production line that can’t support more than 12k units a year, so maybe 50k in 5 years. You’re still engineering a world-beating car with a ton of new technology and a new motor, so you’re still spending hundreds of millions, but you’re spreading that over a relative handful of cars, so the R&D costs are getting up towards 10k per unit, perhaps? And it’s going to cost them perhaps close to twice as much to build as the 911 because they are doing them on a hand built, low-volume production line. So the Nissan guys are struggling to break even, while the Porsche guys are looking for places to hide all their money.

Porsche didn’t get to this position by accident. Over the last 20 years they have carefully engineered this platform strategy/ brand engineering, where what the thing costs to build has little to no relation with what they charge. It’s clear Porsche could build a stripped out, ~45k Cayman RS using an X50 3.8L motor. The X50 motor is significantly lighter that the GT series motors, so even at 380 hp it would have similar performance to the 997 GT3. Suitably de-contented they would maintain a similar profit margin to the Boxsters, and the performance would let it go Z06 and GTR hunting around a race track. Seems like a good deal- will Porsche ever build that car? Not on your life- it would undercut the 911s above it and completely screw up their brand strategy. How could they sell 80k Carraras and 110k GT3s when there is a 45k alternative that’s as fast or faster? For the same reason, would Porsche build a 997TT with maybe the GT2 motor and some better suspension that performs similarly to a GT2 for 50k less? No- it would undercut the GT2. This is despite the fact it would probably be cheaper for them to build one motor instead of two. I suspect that Porsche is going to build faster cars it has to do it across the board...

So the Porsche engineers are only allowed to build what the marketers let them, and the marketers clearly have a bunch of boxes with different power-to-weight ratios and price points that they want checked off.
The GTRs engineers (and Z06 engineers before them), on the other hand, were given a different mission- build the fastest car you can of $XX,XXX dollars. They might not be as good as Porsche engineers, but given a free hand they were able to move the game on a long way.

Porsche has chosen not to go that route, and because of it they have seen their performance decrease relative to the competition while their profits have increased. Look at 911 base model power to weight ratio over the last 30 years compared to anything you’d like to name- the base Vette is an easy one. The ’75 porsche had a 40% better power to weight ratio that the vette. By the late ‘80s vette was almost even with the 911. Today the base vette has a 24% advantage in power to weight, and it has lost 300 lbs since ’75 while the Porsche has gained 500 lbs. This holds for anything up to and including family sedans- everything else is getting faster, and Porsche is simply not maintaining the lead they once had. But people keep buying, and profits are way up...

The GTR is just the latest example- the “curve” has caught and overtaken Porsche, to the point where a souped up altima, as some of you like to say, can beat down not just the base models but all but the very highest end Porsche currently makes. The reason is clear: Porsche has made the obvious decision to not put its best foot forwards performance-wise, while Nissan has. I’m sure that, as long as people (reading this) continue to buy Porsche’s regardless then Porsche will maintain this strategy and the trend will continue. And new Porsches will continue to get slower relative to the competition. Or Porsche can make the conscious decision to spend some money that it clearly has and up its game...

-Pete

 

I'm tired of you failing to grasp the point. Here's an apple. Take a bite and join the le-crunch bunch.

 

Nicely put.

 

^Agreed. That quote makes a lot of sense.