...there are a lot of people, your humble author included, who are deeply interested in the idea of a widebody C7 without a supercharger and all the attendant hassle. This time, too, the Grand Sport is actually lighter than the Z06, which is just icing on the crossed-flag cake. It seems reasonable to suppose that it will be priced somewhere between the Stingray Z51 and the Z06, and if that's the case, it will be a screaming bargain.
Nobody is going use the phrase "screaming bargain" to describe the Porsche 911 R. It's more expensive than the GT3 RS, and most of the vaunted weight savings come from leaving expensive pieces like the air conditioner and the complex rear wing on the factory shelf. Yes, it has a magnesium roof. So does the GT3 RS.
Porsche has made a bit of a habit lately of charging more for less; until very recently, you paid extra money to get your Boxster without a convertible top. Such was not always the case. The 356 Speedster was the first great bargain Porsche, but just 24 short years ago the company offered most of the 911R's purist-friendly features on the 1993 RS America, which cost about 10 grand less than the Carrera 2 on which it was based. The RS-A was showroom poison—I was in the dealership game back then, and I remember it well—but it had a spectacular second act in the used market, and nowadays you will pay nearly twice as much for a 1993 RS America as you would for a base Carrera 2.
You can't blame Porsche for wanting to get a bit of that markup themselves instead of leaving it to the cars' future third owners. You also have to respect the marketing savvy behind releasing it as a limited edition and thus ensuring that they'll be a quick and profitable sale for the dealers. With that said, surely nobody can deny that it would be easy to make a six-speed base 911 with minimal equipment and sell it for considerably less than the $84,300 base price of the two-wheel-drive Carrera coupe. I realize that to do would to be to endanger the market position of the Cayman GTS. I also remember that once upon a time the 944 Turbo and 911 Carrera 3.2 were direct rivals in performance and pricing, but no children or kittens were injured as a result.
There's something disappointing about this 911 R. It's a supremely desirable mechanical object, and it strikes all the right notes from the slick tail to the houndstooth seats, but the basic idea behind it is "charge our most loyal customers extra for the stuff they like." As a multiple-Porsche owner, I find that unnerving and upsetting. This isn't the company with which I fell in love as a kid, and it's not the philosophy of product that led me to work nights and weekends, so I could have a 911 in my garage.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be. General Motors is supposed to be the cynical corporation with the laser-sharp marketing and Sloan-plan pricing. Porsche is supposed to be the plucky bunch of iconoclasts who sell uncompromising enthusiast-focused vehicles to the cognoscenti. Precisely the reverse is happening. I don't like it.
Nor do I think it's particularly brilliant on Porsche's part to make the 911 R a garage-queen collector's edition while Chevrolet floods the streets with Grand Sports. If you're reading this website, chances are you're either a kid who loves cars or you were once a kid who loved cars. Me too. I vividly remember seeing 911 SCs and the like around my neighborhood when I was a precocious pre-teen. I remember riding my bicycle fourteen miles to see the first 944 Turbo S to arrive at my local dealership. I grew up wanting a 911 of my very own, a dream I fulfilled right after my 31st birthday.
Kids these days, if they think of Porsche at all, probably think of the company as the nice people who make their mommy's Macan or their neighbor's Cayenne. Imagine that you're a 10-year-old sitting in the back of a Porsche SUV on the way to school. You're paying attention to your iPhone or your Kindle or whatever when you hear a rumble. Something wicked this way comes. You look away from your electronic babysitter and glance out the window. There's a big black Corvette Grand Sport rumbling past, all unrestrained menace and polished testosterone. You've never seen anything like it.
That's how lifelong customers are made, right there. Porsche will eventually come to regret their decision to make their best and brightest products limited editions, methinks. But since it's too late for me, and I'm already a dyed-in-the-houndstooth fan of the company, I'll put my money where my mouth is, one last time. I want a proper less-is-more 911. Just like the 911 R, but without the magnesium roof and the wound-up engine. I'll take a six-speed coupe, no frills, cloth interior, base motor is fine. Put it in a showroom for whatever the Grand Sport ends up costing. Sixty-five grand, maybe. Seventy, tops. Give me the purist car at the purist price, and I'll show up at the dealership with check in hand. Make it Grand Prix White, please. You can do it, Porsche. Don't make me go to the dark side. I hear they have rookie stripes on the fender.