you know I was thinking that Porsche probably marked up the 911 to pay for all the expenses involved in making the Boxster. As I read in Excellence, back ten years ago after the plans for Boxster were drawn up they were told by the production meisters that the car would cost $80,000 to build. In came some Japanese production consultants and out went Boxster parts to Finland and Austria for assembly, but that 911 never came down in price despite the terrific success of the Boxster. (where'd all the profits go???).
I'm sure they have recouped their Boxster costs long ago but like the Music industry and their intially expensive CD's back in the early 90's, Porsche have only further increased prices making Porsche more profitable than ever in its history.
The 2005 Boxster price didn't skyrocket which makes me wonder if the extra R&D funds to build the 987 came from the success of the Boxster, the markup on the 911 or the Cayenne.
If the Boxster and the 996 were the same price, and I picked the 911
I WOULDN'T HAVE A CONVERTIBLE!
I guess as long as the Boxster is lowest powered Porsche available it will be priced as the least expensive and inevitably the "entry level Porsche" label will stick. Although in the sportscar world of affordable options the power to weight ratio of the Boxster make it far from an "entry level" expense. The Corvette and S2000 may not be as refined as Boxster but they are not lacking in performance one bit. Yet the Boxster is more expensive and I'm not entirely convinced that after all these years and all of these Boxsters bulit its still a really expensive car to build for Porsche. I know that Porsche run limited numbers of production but how do we really know what it actually costs Porsche to build and market a Boxster vs. what's actually sold for? Is the difference in price between a Boxster and a similar performance sportscar all due to its smaller production numbers?
Or is Porsche pricing in some "exclusivity"(read more profits for Stugart).
I guess at the end of the day its less of a headache to run a smaller company with less volume and higher profits than a bigger company with way more volume and smaller profits. Either way its the consumer that funds which route a company will take. Those Porsceh guys are smarter than I thought.