Drive a Porsche? If you do, chances are strong that you’re attractive to someone for this very reason. In fact, I can think of at least three examples in the last few months where someone wanted me for the simple reason that I drive Porsches. What about my sense of humor? My personality? My inner beauty?
It’s not as shallow as it seems
I know, I know. It seems shallow that someone would be interested in me just because of the car I drive. Well, it’s worse and more shallow than it seems. While they are interested in me, they are much more interested in my wallet and my buying preferences. While I have always felt that Porsche is the stick against which all other sport cars are measured, it seems I’m not alone. If you’ve been reading this site for a while now, you must remember Mini’s silly little challenge to Porsche. While fun and well done, it was a rather juvenile attempt to engage Porsche and their customers in order to bring attention to Mini.
Then Lotus got into the game
More recently, I remember reading through a post in the New York Times Wheels blog where Lotus CEO Dany Bahar suggested that lotus needed to sell more than 1100 cars a year to remain a viable company (hmmm, you think?). Asked where all these new Lotus customers would come from Bahar didn’t hesitate in his response, “Porsche.” Bahar goes on to say, “We want the Porsche customer. We bring things to that market segment that Porsche does not offer, such as passion, emotionality and individuality. We will be the British Porsche, the one that doesn’t have everything the German Porsche has.” The British Porsche???
Now, Nissan is Back to Their Old Tricks
Remember when the GT-R was first introduced. All that noise about how fast it was around the “ring” and how it could best the 911 Turbo? This time, Nissan is attacking Porsche more directly, physically even. According to an article on GTSpirit, the ad agency TBWA, Düsseldorf produced and directed a campaign on behalf of Nissan Germany in an attempt to increase awareness and encourage more test drives.
While I hate the idea of someone applying something like this to the windshield of my Porsche, it is a fairly ingenious idea. Too bad the rear-end of the GT-R is so ugly. At least if it was the back of another Porsche it would be nice to look at. Take heart fellow Porsche owners, you now know at least three others, besides your mother, who think you’re attractive.
While this short spoof may not revive Dolph Lundgren’s acting career, it does show that Mini is going to keep throwing jab after jab at Porsche. Is it getting old yet? (for those of you receiving this post via email, if the videos don’t appear, simply click on the title of the post to watch them on PorschePurist.com)
For those of you that don’t remember. Here’s the original training montage from Rocky IV.
Here’s what I want to know. If Porsche doesn’t respond (and I don’t think they will), does Mini win by TKO? Or, is Mini starting to look desperate?
Probably not on the track but they’re definitely sitting P1 in the grassroots marketing grid. You see, a little over a week ago, Mini USA CEO Jim McDowell (a former Porsche employee no less) publicly challenged Porsche to a race at Road Atlanta on the 21st of this month. The winner would get bragging rights, a cool T-Shirt (see the video below and you’ll get an idea for the flavor of this challenge) and some great press.
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Porsche declined the challenge and did so with an open letter to Mini
Dear Jim,
Imagine our surprise to discover our former employee, now the head of Mini, has challenged us to a head-to-head race. As you surely know, Porsche has a long history of racing success, with more than 28,000 wins over the last 60 years. In our early days, we pitted ourselves against the giants, so we’ve been in your shoes.
But as you also know, Porsche doesn’t race for fame, stunts or publicity. We race to challenge ourselves; we race to push sports car technology; we race to translate every win on the track to our cars on the road. If you need a reminder of our intent, please take a look at this short video: http://tinyurl.com/37xdjqx
While your challenge seems like a fun and lighthearted campaign, we’ll stick to racing the way we have over the decades. We welcome you at Sebring, Le Mans, Daytona or any other sanctioned race where there is more at stake than T-shirts and valet parking spaces. We also invite you to any of the thousands of tracks around the world where Porsche owners compete each weekend.
Good luck with your race at Road Atlanta on June 21; we hope you enjoy the day.
Sincerely,
Detlev Von Platen President and CEO, Porsche Cars North America
Mini doesn’t give up
In a move destined for the automotive marketing hall of fame, Mini responded to Detlev’s letter by hiring a plane to fly laps around Porsche’s headquarter with a banner taunting the racing giant.
To prove they were “serious”, Mini issued a second challenge. This time upping the stakes even higher…
Right now it’s Two to Zero and Mini is winning
The fact is, there really are no losers in this type of campaign. It’s fun, it get’s the public involved and it’s good PR for both companies. Let’s hope that Porsche comes up with a creative response to keep things going.
The gauntlet has been thrown down. Will Porsche accept?
UPDATE: Seems like the Changi Airport Group didn’t like their first attempt at a video either. Here’s an updated video of the race that shows things from a different perspective and shows that the race was a lot closer than I originally thought.
In a bid to answer the question, “Which is faster, a Jet or a Porsche?” (not to mention gather some much needed publicity), the Changi Airport group staged a race between a 747 and a Porsche GT3 Cup Car. In what looked like a fairly lopsided race the Porsche won quite handily. While the 747 wins the race for overall top-end, it would need to be airborne to overtake the Porsche.
As hard as they tried, the video and the race just doesn’t seem that exciting. The concept was interesting, but after watching the results, in the video above, I would say the best thing about he execution was the girl they used to wave the green starting flag (and her white boots). If a video with a better perspective is found, I’ll update this post and let you know. In the mean time, here’s a much more entertaining race for you.
This is one of the better in-car racing videos I’ve seen in a long time. The camera placement and picture quality from the Dodge Viper are enough to make you feel like your on the track doing the driving. Fortunately, the Porsche GT3 keeps the lead for most of the race so you get a good feel for the line taken, turn-ins, speed in the straights, etc. The only thing missing would be some form of telemetrics so we could see speed, RPM and gear changes as both GT3s make their way through the sometimes heavy traffic.
I’ve always thought myself to have a decent vocabulary, but never felt the need to wave it around attracting attention. Besides, what I didn’t know I could fake, right? In other words, it usually requires a long and lengthy lexicon to find me reaching for my well worn Webster’s. So imagine my surprise when I read about a Porsche GT2 described as “lairy*”. That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?
I don’t think it’s any great secret that Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson is no fan of the Porsche marque (the 911 in particular). In fact, it seems he can’t resist the urge to throw jabs whenever the opportunity presents itself. He’s done everything from destroying a 911 to deriding the agility and appearance of the 997 GT2 and GT3 (let’s not forget the above mentioned “lairy” comment). Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, my only question is why?
Here’s Clarkson disrespecting the 911 GT2
As I started looking for an answer, I found the following in a Clarkson review of the Porsche GT3:
The GT3 was wrong in every way. And to compound the issue, it is, of course, a 911 – a car I’ve never liked. My relationship with this brainchild of Hitler is curious. I’ve always enjoyed driving them, apart from the 1992 RS which was horrid – and purple, if memory serves – and I’ve always admired the quality. But they’ve all failed to put their hands down my trousers and give me a squeeze. I find them as emotionless as limestone and as a result, I would never even think of buying one.
Okay, he finds them “emotionless as limestone” and maybe he’s a bit sexually frustrated. Outside of that why the continued contempt? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Clarkson fan. I just don’t understand the hate. Was he somehow snubbed by Porsche? Did his size 14, seemingly lead filled foot, get run over by a 911 on the track somewhere. If you know the reason or story behind the odium* (how’s that for a vocab word?) please let me know.
*lairy : vulgar and flashy *odium : hatred and condemnation accompanied by loathing or contempt
[Source: 993C4S, TopGear, Websters]
Written on November 3rd, 2008 at 12:10am by 993C4S
With all the noise being made about the which car is faster around the ring, Porsche or Nissan, it’s about time someone stepped up to the plate with a solution that lets us determine the winner for ourselves. I offered up a different solution a few weeks back, but so far neither Porsche or Nissan seem to be biting.
In the interim, check out the latest shot at a solution from iMotor. Okay, so maybe it’s only a video game, and a simple one at that, but it works well and it’s fun for a couple of minutes while you pound the crap out of your keyboard trying to push your Porsche in pursuit of Godzilla around the ring.
Give it a shot and see what time you can post. Fortunately, the game moves quick and even a slow time should come in under 30 seconds. Thankfully, it’s not true to life from a timing standpoint. If it were, I can imagine a bunch of kids with bloody stumps for fingers as they bang away fighting for that sub 7:29 lap time.
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With all the noise being made about the which car is faster around the ring, Porsche or Nissan, it’s about time someone stepped up to the plate with a solution that lets us determine the winner for ourselves. I offered up 
