Can I hate Porsche in peace now?!

So, if you’re new here, I don’t like Porsche at all. But being a car enjoyer and not a car enthusiast, I channel my energy towards cars that in fact make me happy and satisfy my needs as a driver. Like McLaren. Every now and then I share my opinion on the German brands as a whole and more specifically on Porsche. But that was the opinion of someone who’d never lived with a Porsche, mercifully. And that was the case until a couple of months ago. 

My boyfriend got himself a track-focused Cayman (GT4 spec). He’s a McLaren person through and through, just like me. We are a McLaren household, we even call our joint garage “The McLaren orphanage”, because all of our cars have been through stuff, rough stuff, before we bought them. Having the ultimate driver-focused machines in the garage in the faces of two 720S - mine and his, he was offered a Cayman as a track car. So, he bought it to see what’s like. Another disclaimer - even though we both don’t like Porsche, we still considered the Cayman to be the most driver-focused from their lineup. I intentionally used past tense. 

My boyfriend is an amateur driver, who beats the pros. In other words - he beats the pros’ track records with his McLaren. He built his McLaren to be the best street-track car ever. And it is. I’m scared to drive that thing, even though mine is more powerful. He designed the wing, the canards, the front, the interior - all of that based on a trial and error approach in the last 3 years without sparing any resources in the process. I believe his 720S is the best prepared McLaren for the track in the world. Just to give you an idea of what type of a person gets that Cayman. He knows what’s up and he knows his cars. He’s very active and well-known in the McLaren forums btw. 

Which leads us to August last year when he bought the Cayman.

Oh, there hasn’t been a track day without something failing. 6 hours endurance race? DNF. A track weekend? Lost power, couldn’t set time. The brakes overheat constantly. You’d think it’s just a bad example?! No, no! One of his track friends also got a Cayman (GT4) - a new one. After just one track weekend, the thing was in for a new engine. One track weekend and the engine fucking blew?! You think that’s normal? In my 6 years of living with cars, I haven’t seen anything so fragile. Not even the Murcielago is this fragile. And they call McLaren “unreliable”. If McLaren are unreliable, then what is this? Almost forgot - another GT4 is currently in with one of our mechanics for a new transmission.  In comparison, the track-focused M2 G87 with €20k in mods is a better car than the Cayman. Much more enjoyable to drive and to own. Did 6 hours endurance race and finished second! Never missed a track day due to a failure. Great car overall!

So, yeah. I can hate Porsche in peace now, without anyone saying “but, but you’ve never owned one, it’s the best car on the planet, driver-focused blah blah” LMAO Technically, I didn’t own one, but I’m glad it cemented my opinion on the brand. I’m yet to meet someone who’s into cars for the driving that is also into Porsche. This tells me everything and sorry, I’m not sorry.

One last hot take - what if Porsche's financial struggles are actually caused because their products suck? All 3 examples are men who can afford to buy the most expensive car Porsche has to offer. Do you think they will after the horrible experience with the Cayman? Solid no. So, no matter how many fancy events with influencer wannabes Porsche makes, the purchasing power comes from elsewhere. The brand has turned into the Birkin of the car world - a must-have for influencers. Ofc, the influencers don't drive them the way we do, some even believe that having a "low milage GT3 RS" is admirable. It's not. But that's another topic for another discussion and the Porsche's obsession with influencers will absolutely be their suicide. I'm a creative director, who's worked with startups for 10 years now. The first and most important thing I try to teach them is to focus on real world impact, having a good product and service is a must, but nothing beats the word of mouth. That's my rule number one. Social media only works, if it's backed by word of mouth - that's the real credibility. This is especially valid when we talk about rich people being your target audience. They all have lunch together any other Saturday and trust me, they talk. They don't care what @gabbysgarage or @lorryoncars (totally made up, wouldn't be surprised if they're real) have to say in their 30 sec "review" about the new Turbo S, if a person in the room owns it and is not happy. It doesn't matter. That's real world business 101. I've sold more M2s and 720S than the average "influencer" with 100k followers without even filming a stupid video of me walking around the cars and pressing buttons here and there. Just by telling and showing how great these cars are. Porsche's strategy seems to be the opposite at the moment and you can guess how we talk about the brand? Yeah.. exactly.

That was it.

Back to being a car enjoyer.