Remember when Porsche couldn't give away the 918?

"Thomas Donohue" (tomonomics) 02/03/2016 at 12:06 • Filed to: Porsche, RM sotheby, Doug DeMuro, Barrett-Jackson, Porsche 918

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Does anyone recall, all those years ago, when Porsche was having a ‘problem’ selling the 918 Spyder? Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon.... We told you, no one will buy a brand new million-dollar Porsche!!!

Remember those days, way back when? (Hint: it was just over two years ago in 2013) Here are a few reminders of how the press had a schadenfreude-like boner when rumours started spreading of alleged slow demand for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Here’s what they said:

“Those two (Ferrari and McLaren) are also sold out. Porsche, on the other hand, still has about half its 918-unit 918 production run available. ” - Car and Driver 12/2013

In May of 2013, Jalopnik had these !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! : “ The Porsche 918 is so special , in fact, that both the McLaren and the Ferrari have actually already sold out. — Hey Porsche- if you can’t get rid of them, I’ll take one off your hands. Just sayin ’.”

“The Porsche 918 hybrid supercar took more brainpower and money to build than Porsche had originally fathomed. Luckily for Porsche, though, the 918 is selling like hotcakes. Oh I’m sorry. I was thinking of the LaFerrari. No, the 918 isn’t selling well at all .” – Digital Trends 11/2013

Our own !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! even chimed in with his probably-unread-until-now 2014 ‘review’ over on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , saying that the car had “cutting edge technology” and “incredible performance”, but then added “Cons: enormous price tag; large production run” and called it “one of the most expensive new cars of all time.” Doug later piled on the hate, saying it had a “mediocre electric powertrain, and an insanely high price tag.” Yikes. Sounds like someone is still angry about doing TPS reports while working at Porsche. (If you followed him on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , you’d already know this...)

One would think all of those soon-to-be-leftovers on the Porsche lots would depreciate faster than the seven gallons of milk you bought right before the last blizzard. Well, kids, guess what?

Yup, the Porsche 918 is already fetching a 50% premium at auction....

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! just dropped the hammer on a white 918 that went for $1.76 Million dollars. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Wait, what? Oh, OK, sure....some nouveau-riche cattle farmer probably thought it was a mid-engined !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the 80s and got a little crazy, mistakenly placing $100,000 bids with his corn-cob pipe. Who the hell sells a German supercar at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ???

Let’s leave the muscle-car circus tent and head on over to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! auction, where sensible, wine-drinking, old-money folk bid with nods and winks, not burps. These true Ferraristas would never pay more than.... what? !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for a two-year-old Porsche??? My !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! isn’t even worth that much!!! What’s going on????

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

It appears that demand for the Porsche 918 is legit. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Cé hé sin > Thomas Donohue 02/03/2016 at 12:20

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Makes sense. McLaren couldn’t sell the F1 back in the day. Ford couldn’t sell the RS200.

RX > Thomas Donohue 02/03/2016 at 12:23

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All hyper cars have shot up recently. The Enzo/F40/F50/288 have doubled in value in the past year. The Ferrari TheFerrari and the P1 are a million more than people paid. Even rare edition rare option regular exotics are getting expensive. Manual transmission F430s have doubled in price the last year.

StingrayJake > Thomas Donohue 02/03/2016 at 12:34

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Be that as it may, why did they build 918 of them? Good on them for wanting to be more available than a certain Italian horse breeder, but that’s a fairly big number.

dogisbadob > Thomas Donohue 02/03/2016 at 12:41

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sorry, I had to

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > StingrayJake 02/03/2016 at 12:46

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They sold @ 1k carerra gts

Thomas Donohue > StingrayJake 02/03/2016 at 13:04

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Because 918=918? Also, because they knew they would sell them all, even if they were over 5x the price of anything the dealerships or customers had ever seen.

Ferrari sold 6900 cars in 2014....499 of them were LaFerraris.

For comparison, Porsche sold over 30,000 of just one model, the 911, in 2014. Suddenly the 918 looks pretty exclusive.

Somewhat apples to oranges, but my sarcastic point was that the 918s were not sitting unsold at dealerships the way the press would have led you to believe.

Supercharged-V8-Jag > Thomas Donohue 02/03/2016 at 13:05

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Wait, you owned a 2.7 RS? Damn dude, you are set for life.

Side note: Porsche also sold 1200+ CGTs- look how much those are going for these days..

Thomas Donohue > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 02/03/2016 at 13:10

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The CGT was originally forecast for 1500 build slots. They cut that back to ~1300 towards the end of production.

Thomas Donohue > Supercharged-V8-Jag 02/03/2016 at 13:18

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Ha! I still have my original 1975 911 Turbo, but it’s not an RS. They go for between $9 and $15 (dollars).

Hot Takes Salesman > Thomas Donohue 02/15/2016 at 13:26

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I do see some distinct advantages of the 918 over the other hypercars- most relating to the all-wheel drive. I mean, holy shit, Car & Driver tested the 918 from 0 to 60 at 2.2 seconds. And Randy Pobst trusted the 918 more than the P1 at Laguna Seca because of the all-wheel drive combined with those Michelins giving fantastic grip.

Hot Takes Salesman > Thomas Donohue 02/15/2016 at 13:28

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Wait... Donohue... Owned an expensive Porsche... Any relation to the Donohue thinking of?

Thomas Donohue > Hot Takes Salesman 02/16/2016 at 00:25

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No, no.....you’re probably thinking of Phil Donahue of talk-show fame. No relation as far as my Grandmother knows.

To clarify, these are not the same:

DeMuro / Donahue (note the ‘a’) / Donohue.

As they say in the old country: Dunna-who?

Hot Takes Salesman > Thomas Donohue 02/16/2016 at 00:53

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I was thinking about this Donohue.