Ten Fun Facts From the Porsche Media Roundtable (video)
Sales, prices, stats, get out your Excel sheet!
By Imthishan Giado
Yesterday I attended a media roundtable at Dubai’s ultra-swanky Palace Hotel to officially meet the new Managing Director of Porsche Middle East & Africa, Christer Ekberg, who’s a top man, gregarious to a fault and a real car guy to boot.
Rather than writing ten stories about everything we discussed (a cheap traffic ploy which I totally wasn’t thinking about doing) here’s the major highlights from what he said:
1) The Dubai Motorshow will not feature a 918 Spyder on the stand (there will be a 1:8 scale model standing in for it) but will instead serve as the official debut of the new 911 Turbo, 911 GT3 and for one day only, the 911 50th Anniversary Edition.
Want a new GT3? That’ll be AED 491,100 Sir.
2) Curious about how much those three will cost? Prepare to have your eyeballs fly out of your hand like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. GT3 prices start at AED 491, 100, 911 Turbo coupes go for AED541,800 and the 50th Anniversary car – which remember, is simply a sticker and tape special edition – will cost AED 464,300. Wowsers.
3) Don’t expect to get your hands on the new Porsche Macan crossover – initial production at the Leipzig facility is just 50,000 units. The car will be unveiled at the LA Motor Show on Nov 19.
4) Definitely don’t expect to get your hands on a 918 unless you really, really know somebody in Weissach – deliveries start in January for the new hypercar (only 918 examples will be produced, natch) and it will take nearly a year for each vehicle to be delivered to the Middle East.
5) The 918 did do some testing in the region, as did the Macan and other vehicles in the region. But unlike companies like JLR and GM, Porsche does not maintain permanent testing facilities in the region.
The new Turbo’s a steal at AED 541,800….
6) The region’s had a bumper year. Boxster sales are up 249% in the region, Cayenne has seen a huge 45% boost and 911 – even without its uber-profitable Turbo models – doing 29% better year-on-year for Q1-Q3. Total sales volume increase? 38%, equalling about 8719 vehicles sold this year.
7) But pity the poor Panamera…it’s seen a 16% sales drop. A new model (and a hybrid) have just gone on sale (we review it here) so maybe next year will be different.
8) Dubai’s Porsche Centre is officially the world’s top dealership in terms of sales volume, narrowly beating Abu Dhabi with 1337 cars sold to AD’s 1066.
9) Peculiarly, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are considered separate markets so South Africa is actually the biggest seller in the region with 1798 cars sold in total through three dealerships.
10) Tired of waiting 10-12 days for an appointment in Dubai to service your Porsche? Good news could be on the way with new facilities under construction in the region. Ekberg says there’ll be a “50%” increase in servicing infrastructure by the end of next year.
