“Building on the well-received 911 Carrera GTS with its extra power, visual panache and extensive extras for an attractive price, Porsche today announced the 911 Carrera 4 GTS.”
“The extra all-weather performance, visual muscle and standard equipment of the 911 Carrera 4 GTS comes at an attractive price. On sale this fall, the 911 Carrera 4 GTS Coupe will be available in the US at a base MSRP price of $110,200 while the 911 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet will be priced at $120,100.”
Not even Hyundai mentions “attractive pricing” so often in their press releases. Click the jump for the details and a much better way to spend your money.
It’s a sick, shameful fact: the majority of 911s sold by Porsche in the United States are convertibles, and many of them are all-wheel-drive convertibles. That’s kind of your paranoid poser crowd. No surprise, then, that Porsche has a new 408-horsepower AWD convertible to sell them. It comes with a set of really neat center-lock racing wheels for all the racing you won’t be doing in a convertible, also.
In coupe form, at leaast, it’s an attractive-looking car, but it’s not fully-equipped at the aforementioned affordable price. It starts in Audi R8 V8 territory and quickly ascends to Audi R8 V10-land as you add various interior and exterior garnishes.
Once upon a time, Porsches had outstanding resale value. No longer. If $110K is too rich for your blood, how about a real-deal GT2 with under 4,000 miles for $105,000? Sheesh. If limited-edition unobtanium Porkers can’t hold their value, what do you suppose run-out-model AWD droptops with automatic transmissions will be worth in a few years?
Here’s another side of the value story. The last exactly-408-horsepower AWD coupe Porsche offered was the 993 Turbo. It cost $105,000 in 1998. That’s the equivalent of $140,000 today. So the GTS-4 coupe represents a bargain, right? And it would be a better idea to spend $110K on a new GTS than it would be to spend $65K on a top-condition 993 Turbo, right? I’ll just leave this picture here to help you decide.
This is a sad but true fact about Porsches – they just aren’t that special anymore. The 993 was the last really unique Porsche.
This is why you can pick up a 996 for much less money than the 993. Well, it’s also the list of problems associated with the early water cooled Porsches, but it doesn’t help that they just don’t offer a dramatically different driving experience from any other car on the road.
I’ve been watching early 997 prices for a while and this latest body style isn’t doing so hot on resale prices either.
I love this pick on Gawker (via Jalop)
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2011/05/every-911-997-porsche.jpg
Porsche will sell everyone they send over here. I doubt the buyers even consider depreciation or resale value. If it’s the right color and they look good in it, that’s all that matters.
This just in: Baruth critizises Porsche. Maybe you should mention that the 996 GT2 is already 9 years old. And that all special Porsches went through a decreasing value phase. You could pick up Carrera 2.7 RS’s for relatively small money in the late 70s…
Has Porsche jumped the shark?
Has the ratio of poseurs to drivers reached a point of no return like it has for BMW?
Is Lotus the new Porsche?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Yes. Porsche’s in it for the money.
Yes. Witness the sales of Porsche’s mommymobile CUV outselling the “real” 911.
Yup. Lotus’ new, bloated cars say they’re jumping, too.
Hope this helps!
By my count within a 10-house radius of me, there are 4 different 911 owners. Let me preface this by saying, I am no expert on Porsches and can’t distinguish years and trims from seeing the cars parked in the driveways on the weekend – but one dude (the coolest of the bunch) has an early-80s 911, big whale-tail, BBS wheels and he races it, does his own repairs, has a scissor lift in his garage – since he is obsessed with dialing in his suspension – he takes it out on the road every now and again, but mostly lives to drive it hard. Driver.
Fella about 3 houses away has a really plain (silver) 911 – I don’t see any C2, C4, turbo badges on it and it just looks like a fat beetle to me – You’d think poseur, But Wait! – same fella has a 968 in full race trim (big Mobil 1 wrap on it) that he takes down off his four-post and loads on his trailer with an extra set of wheels and hits the road. Driver.
Then we have a guy with a 2005,6,7 (not sure) vert in that metallic green color. Doesn’t turn a wrench and is kind of a dbag. Our kids hang out and the kid is a dbag, too.Poseur.
Two houses away is a urologist in whose driveway recently appeared a yellow “turbo” – not sure of the year – looks older and has the double level spoiler and those “salad shooter” looking wheels (chromed). Pretty cool looking car – but I’m going to put him in the posuer camp. Just because neighbors (I only moved in a year ago) say he had another Porsche previously but they can’t give details because he never drove it.
So 2 Driver, 2 Posuers
As a post-script – I work with two 911 guys – one a “regular” ’08 and one a cobalt blue “Targa” – Both posuers.
I would SO drive a Lotus instead of a Porsche.
Also, the GTS is over 5k cheaper than a similarly equipped Carrera S. Plus you get a stronger engine, nicer wheels and Alcantara interior. So I guess all is relative.
“Once upon a time, Porsches had outstanding resale value. No longer…what do you suppose run-out-model AWD droptops with automatic transmissions will be worth in a few years?”
Try telling that to people who bought Sportomatic 911s in the 70s. This is a true strawman argument. Today’s 911s sell in higher numbers than 944s and 924s in the 80s, I don’t remember those having ‘outstanding resale value’. A large part of the high resale value for early 911s was simply due to scarcitiy of supply.
A lot of those cars is being sold in NYC area. People here need convertibles for hot summers and all wheal drive for harsh winters ;)
Plenty more in SoCal, you know, for all the harsh weather we get – a half-inch of rain is like 40 days & 40 nights down here.
Dude, I once slept overnight in my car in Safeway’s parking lot in South Lake Taho, CALIFORNIA, because all roads were closed due to MASSIVE SNOWSTORM.
Man, South Lake Tahoe is a looooong way away from San Diego. But even in the south SF Bay area, extended rain is akin to the apocalypse.
Tahoe is half a state away from metro Los Angeles, not even close to SoCal, much less SD.
AWD convertibles sold is a sick, shameful fact? Seriously?
Yeah, seriously.
The idea of a four-seat convertible 911 is, itself, ridiculous. Even after thirty years and multiple generations it still looks like a frog with a goiter.
The idea of an AWD 911 is also ridiculous; snow tires will get you anywhere the ground clearance permits, and ask Vic Elford if you don’t believe me. Having driven RWD 911s with 750 wheel horsepower on track, I also don’t buy the idea that a front diff is necessary to “handle the power.”
Choosing a convertible AWD Porsche is fundamentally admitting that you’re not really interested in owning a Nine Eleven; you just want to be seen driving a Porsh. Only the existence of the loathsome Panamera and star-crossed Cayenne keeps the 911 C4S AWD droptop from being the most regrettably Porsche money can buy.
I bought a ’91 C4 coupe in ’95. Cost was about 60% of sticker after 4 years – there were very few available – Porsche only sold about 5000 cars in ’91, which is part of the reason they took in the wash and wrenched together the Mercedes 500E/E500s the following few years. At 247hp, no worries about handling the power, and stored for the winter, no worries about snow. But that 247hp was a lot more than any car I had owned and I wanted the more forgiving handling, having previously vividly experienced trailing throttle oversteer in an original VW.
A few years later, mein Porsche salesman commented that his best seller was a C4 convertible with the Tiptronic transmission.
The Gen 1 C4s had an AWD derived from the 959 system, a mechanical nightmare that incorporated everything short of a flyball governor. I sold the thing in ’08 when I realized that the techs who could service this and actually fix problems were probably retiring….
Who regrets it?
I dunno, I think Panamera is the first Porsche I might ever consider buying.
Maybe the AWD convertible automatic is the best selling 997 because it weighs the most. Weight is an important metric when it comes to the hierarchy of luxury cars, as demonstrated amply by the Panamera and Cayenne.
Man, what is it with you and the Panamera hate? Alongside the Raptor, I can’t help but feeling it’s the only car in recent years that have advanced the state of the gofast art in any meaningful way. It’s a bit wide, and more than a bit ugly, and P not bringing the manual to the US is an insult (as well as yet another confirmation US P buyers are now largely comprised of AWD, ‘vert and automatic intending bailout beneficiaries). But the thing drives like nothing else with remotely similar passenger and luggage space.
And besides, if you ever wanted to demonstrate beyond doubt the usefulness of the “go fast on the street” tips you gave in that infamous article series; by, say, breaking the cannonball record; I can’t imagine a better car to do it in than the Pan.
Jack, the idea of an AWD 911 isn’t that ridiculous. In the mid 1980s Porsche rallied the 911 Carrera 4×4 as part of the development of the AWD 959 Group B car. I think earlier than that Porsche ran 4X4 911s in the Dakar rally. So an AWD Porsche is not exactly a brand abomination.
Just wondering, have you driven an AWD 911? How differently does it handle than regular RWD ass-engined Nazi slot cars?
Ronnie
The modern turbos are all AWD unless you pay a lot more for a GT2. The AWD reduces oversteer but at high enough RPMs even I could still rotate it a little with my right foot. But not too much, that would be scary.
The 959s did very well in Paris-Dakar. The engines could burn anything marginally better than kerosene because, hey, its Africa. IIRC, the best year, the parts car didn’t get cannibalized and finished 5th or so.
Count me in as someone who is shocked at the existence of a convertible AWD 911. It’s strange that anyone would drive a 911 in the winter. It’s almost unbelievable that anyone would drive a 911 convertible in winter!
I’d be interested (and a little sad) to see if Porsche’s pushing up it’s prices will retroactively revalue older cars upwards.
I’ve always wanted an older Porsche (four seats, for preference, so not the Cayman or Boxster), but the damn things cost more than a new 370Z. Price increases like this will not help matters.
Have you ever sat in the so-called back seats of a 911? These qualify as seats only for children under the age of 10. You do get more room to adjust the front seats and you get a pretty nice upholstered grocery bag storage area.
The whole reason I’d want back seats is for children under 10. I stand exactly no chance of getting a two-door, two-seat car, but I could potentially squeak in something overtly sporty as long as it had some back seat space.
Admittedly, a Porsche is pretty unlikely, but I had to cross the CR-Z off the list for this reason and it’s otherwise equally-equipped.
My niece and nephew loved riding in the back seat of my mother’s Porsche, but I’m not sure it is even legal in many states now to carry anyone who can fit in a Porsche back seat without an approved child seat that won’t fit.
I thought the GT3 RS 4.0 would be the 997’s swan song.
Guess I was wrong…but I wasn’t the only one.
I heard the rumor that the new body GT models will be automatic only. In that case, the current GT2 and GT3 are going to be the last of a dying breed.
Now if only Porsche would shove the GTS engine into the Cayman. Heck, even the 3.6L would be a good first start.
AWD convertible 911 with 408 hp? I wouldn’t kick it outta my garage for eating crackers. And thank the lord for poseurs. Bless each and every one. For they buy brand new cars that I covet and thus, keep the OEMs going strong. Then the poseurs take the depreciation hit so I can waste an even greater percentage of my disposable income than they so that I might own their sloppy seconds.
Isn’t that the Steven Lang formula to successful car ownership?
As to the value proposition of Porsche automobiles — the product performance/quality/brand perception/service divided by new car sticker — that has to be seen through the eyes of an entirely different tax bracket than I find myself in.
Speaking of the poseurs & their beneficial impact on resale, I surely wouldn’t mind picking up an AWD 911 hardtop one day. That might be a fun car.
I think we should stop calling them posers. Nice car. Buy it or don’t. Hate it or dont! Anyone suggesting AWD subtracts from the Racing Heritage should go do something else.
On the other hand, shifting the market to poseurs inevitably has an impact. Consider how the Jeep Wrangler 2011 quietly lost its skidplates, which used to come standard (my 2010 was the last year to get them). They even removed them from Rubicon! Long term, poseurs will eat your 911 from inside.
With both a Jeep and a Porsche — the polar extremes of extreme motoring — the OEMs can design for poseurs…er, first-owners all they want, as long as the core of the vehicle remains. The joy in being owner number two is that A) you buy it cheap enough, B) you already have a good idea what you’re going to do with it. Then you add your own goodiebits. Which there are no shortage of when it comes to 911s and Wranglers.
I agree with you on Porsches, but not on Wranglers. They hold the best resale value of any vehicle out there, its very hard to find bargains that havent been beaten to death.
And I think the real reason the Wrangler lost its skid plates was so you had to buy them from the Mopar catalog as a dealer accessory.
I have that same “Kills bugs fast.” poster in my office at work. Gets a lot of compliments.
A few years back I saw a Ford GT and a Lotus Elise parked next to a bright red, 997 convertible with a slushbox. Guess which one was getting the most attention.
Ford GT. In a sane world.
I dunno – I’m kinda partial to the Elise, for how pure it is.
On a functional level, I might give the Elise the nod but I have to go with the GT on an aesthetic level, which is what parking lot attention is all about.
“Value pricing” at 6 figures; a “mayhem” engine. . . the hits just keep on coming from autoland!
As a roadster owner, I have to be honest about convertibles. Driving them with the top down at triple digit speeds is a PITA. A convertible seems “right” at about 50 mph. Go faster, and you feel like you’re being abused. Then there’s the whole rigidity problem, which gets worse as the car gets bigger. And a convertible with the top up is a really bad hardtop. I guess that’s why the ragtop is yielding to the folding hardtop among those who want convertibles.
But Jack is right, if you’re into serious motoring at speed, you don’t buy a convertible of any kind.
As for AWD on other than a true SUV for use in deep snow, it’s like a diaper for the incontinent, or should I say “incompetent.”
I’m going to steal that line about the diaper the next time someone complains about the Subaru/Toyota/Scion FT-86/FR-S being RWD instead of AWD. I have my 9.6″ ground clearance SUV for driving in deep snow. Sports cars need to steer with the front tires and accelerate with the rear tires.
Pretty sure there are pictures of people w/ Boxsters on the circuit.
If you can’t afford it, then what’s the point of having an opinion on it? It’s not a product designed and marketed for you. It’s a product for someone else who doesn’t share your values or needs.
Or another way of putting it, the people who can afford a new Porsche don’t spend their time on blogs. Their time is too valuable.
Let’s be honest kids. Most of the products that were a “Driver’s Car” in the late 1980s have become fashion accessories. I say we should all just get over it.
Paging Thorstein Veblen, please pick up the 24kt gold plated courtesy phone.
Of course you wouldn’t drive anything so declasse as a Porsche when joining a few chums on your 18M Nautor’s Swan. You’d take the Bentley instead.
Rod, I’m curious as to why you think I cannot afford a Porsche and/or share “values” with those who do. To begin with, I currently drive the most prestigious vehicle in the word — the Lincoln Town Car Signature Limited — so surely you aren’t dinging me for that, right?
Long hair and jorts, to name a few…
@Rod: Ed would debate you on those demographics.
Besides, why wouldn’t they want to visit this, the most brainy car blog; they’d find the best info here?
Hell, I bet they even waste their time on [::shudders::] AB just to keep up with the Lambo current events.
The notion that successful people don’t waste their time on the Internet is comprehensively dismissed by reading Ferrarichat for a few hours. Jim Glickwhatever has a few thousand posts on there. There are folks who have been proven to own more than one F40/F50/Enzo/FXX who seemingly do nothing but sit on the offtopic forums/Silver Subscribed and bitch about politics and hockey.
I also found out during my brief partnership with Switzer that they sold three $50,000 tuning kits to people who had read my Switzer P800 review here on TTAC. That was humbling and a little scary.
Wow Rod, you really like to be wrong. Other than the part about the driver’s cars of the ’80s devolving into fashion accessories, practically every point you’ve made is incorrect. Putting aside your first error, that there are plenty of forum participants who spend six figures on cars, the views of the common heard are essential to Porsche. That’s why they come up with a new piece of tape with a name every month to keep their 4 models in the magazines constantly. The people who buy automatic AWD parade floats want to be seen in them, and they want to be admired. It is important that they think people aren’t laughing at them. In that sense, bloggers opinions of Porsches are practically as important as under-endowed balding plastic surgeons’ opinions of Porsche are.
now there is a task for TTAC crew – is this Porsche at 120 double the fun of an M3 convertible at half price? Or double the fun of Nissan Titan at half price?
The reality is that there is a lot of junk out there sold for what 911 used to cost – around $70-80K. And there is a Cayman at half price. Good job spreading your targets, I say.
Nissan Titan?
A $60,000 one at that?
Running over Porsche convertibles in a jacked-up Nissan Titan may be pretty fun. Double that fun and we’re talking.
Any 911 convertible is several time funn’er than the M3 convertible. Unless you are relegated to backseat duty, at least.
$120k is twice a CTS-V. Is that the comparo?
In answering your question –
the price is attractive only to Porsche.
Jack – it would only be corporate insanity if they didn’t sell everyone of them at a nice margin. I have no doubt they will sell every one of them. I know that from an everyman’s perspective that it makes no sense but Porsche thats not who Porsche is going after here.
Hey, ya know, 90%+ who buy Porsches or any other high-performance cars are not race drivers, and in fact their driving skills are probably not any better than the average driver. Does that automatically make them posers?
I might like to own a Porsche someday (like my father and my grandfather before me). If I ever do, it’d probably be a used Cayman or Boxster. I might consider some advanced driving lessons, maybe try it out a couple of times on the track, but for the most part it would simply be a nice, fun car that I own, that I could sometimes engage in some spirited driving. I wouldn’t claim to be anything else. Would that make me a poser?
If you never take it on a road course (i.e., a track) then you are not going to be able to get anywhere near its limits. (Doing it on the street is dangerous to you and others, illegal, and irresponsible.)
If you are not going to get it near its limits then why bother buying an expensive performance car with high performance limits?
Why buy a 400 hp car when all you ever use it 200 hp of it? Why buy a car that will pull 1 g when you never get above 0.5 g? Why buy a car with an 8000 rpm redline when you never get the engine above 4000 rpm for fear you might hurt your ‘investment’?
Answer: 1) to show you can afford it (but really you are in debt up to your eyeballs), 2) to show you have ‘taste’, (but really you only bought a mass-produced consumer item), or 3) to have people infer that you are able to handle a high performance car at its limits.
What percentage of Porsches see a track surface? Maybe 10% if you don’t count Cayennes and Panameras. (But that is still way above most other ‘performance’ marques.)
Give me a guy who wrenches and tracks his ancient MG and “I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart”
Forget an m3, why not a buy a vette instead? I’m seeing a Corvette convertible sticker for just over $54k. You’ll never want to do more than 80mph in either car anyway. For all those who say the interior of a corvette sucks, $65k buys a hell of a custom interior. Oh, and the AWD that is going to save you in bad weather is not going to do much with those sticky performance tires on it. Buy the vette and use the extra cash for a nice SUV if you must.
“Bravo, fat man from Kentucky! This is masterpiece!”
Hahaha, gotta have a top gear reference!
You guys in the US don’t know how lucky you are! 110 grand for a GTS 4? In Australia that same model costs $300,000 and that’s with our dollar being worth US$1.10 !!
Of course, about $120,000 of that goes to our government in taxes, but even taking longer distance shipping into account,Porsche Australia is still making an extra $70,000 per car versus it’s US customers. How is that good value for money?
And at $300k every single one brought to Oz will be sold. I only dream about buying this car for $110,000 yet all I am reading here is that the price is too high and does not represent good value?
Get serious guys…
Just because you are getting phenomenally ripped off over there, it does not mean the 911 is not overpriced over here.
You missed my point entirely. $110,000 is exceptionally good value for the 4 GTS, no matter which country you live in. It beggars belief that I see comments which suggest it’s otherwise, particularly when the Porsche is being compared to some of the other brands listed here.
You guys can purchase it at the equivalent of AU$99,000 which is half the price of a Nissan GT-R here. At that price I would have one GTS for the poseur in me, and another for track-day work.
As an Aussie I feel your pain, but just because its comparably cheaper doesn’t make it good value. Eg, a 320i costs:
Singapore – $161000 USD
Australia – $60000 USD
That doesn’t mean its good value in AUS ;) But i agree, damn taxes, damn profiteering companies!
What’s wrong with this picture: