Thank You for Your Comments

The other day, I received a comment from a blog reader.

I always enjoy reading your blog every day. After reading it daily, I started wanting to buy a Panamera, and now I’m seriously considering purchasing one! Your insights on options are very helpful!

Wow, that’s amazing! Thank you so much! Actually, every time I get comments like this, I think about one thing:

“It’s incredible that people want to buy it and actually can (￣ー￣)”

That’s how I feel. Everyone is amazing—I have to keep doing my best too!

Maintaining the Porsche Brand

Today, I want to reflect once again on the “Porsche brand.” Regarding this “brand value that Porsche holds,” I once heard an interesting story.

To maintain the brand value of “Porsche,” the company used to take the stance of “producing only 99 cars for every 100 orders.” Of course, they mass-produced cars, but the limited numbers meant that even if you wanted one, not everyone could get one. Because of this scarcity, the price value and status were preserved, and the brand value increased.

However, around 1993, Porsche faced a management crisis, and annual sales were only about 10,000 to 12,000 units. What saved them from this crisis was the introduction of the Cayenne, Porsche’s first SUV. The Cayenne combined both “hobby” and “practicality,” becoming Porsche’s biggest hit ever. With the Cayenne’s arrival, Porsche’s customer base expanded significantly.

Nowadays, we keep hearing news like “Porsche achieves record profits” and “global sales hit all-time highs,” and Porsche continues to put effort into developing and improving the 911. But if Porsche had stuck only to pure sports cars, things might not be like this today.

It’s precisely because Porsche has evolved with the times that it is what it is today.

Still, I hope that the part where “Porsche is not a car for just anyone, but a valuable car that can be a dream and goal for people” will never change, now or in the future.

My Husband’s Dream Since Elementary School

My husband is a self-proclaimed Porsche enthusiast, and I once asked him what sparked his love for Porsche. He said this:

When I was in elementary school, there was a hugely popular drama called “Papa wa News Caster.” In that drama, the main character Ryutaro Kagami, played by Masakazu Tamura, drove a Porsche, and the first time I saw that car, I thought, “Wow, that car is so cool!” That was the start of it all.

Oh, I remember seeing a rerun of that drama once.

I asked, “Ah, that super flashy drama, right? Was the Porsche a 911 or something back then?”

At the time, I didn’t know what model it was, but later I found out it was a “928.” It wasn’t so much that it was cool, but more like, “there’s something nice about it.” So I told my dad (in the Banshu dialect, meaning father), “Dad, you should drive a Porsche instead of a Honda!” I remember him laughing and saying, “That’s silly, Porsche only suits Masakazu Tamura!”

That drama sparked his interest in Porsche, and later, when he saw the Boxster unveiled at an overseas motor show, he dreamed of “one day owning a Porsche.”

There was a period when he was into motorcycles and rode them a lot, but by the time he became a working adult, his dream of “one day owning a Porsche” had turned into a firm goal of “definitely buying a Porsche in the future.”

However, his salary at the time wasn’t enough to buy a Boxster, so he ordered every magazine with Porsche articles and lined them up on his bookshelf at home, consciously living as if he already owned a Porsche.

There were times when he almost gave up, thinking “Maybe I can’t afford a Porsche,” but he kept working hard toward the goal he set.

That dream, decades in the making, came true about three years ago. The car he bought was the 981 Boxster GTS (MT), which appears often on this blog. It took about a year from order to delivery.

I was there at the moment of delivery, and I still vividly remember the excitement and joy on his face when he first sat in his Boxster at the dealer and started the engine.(Though he stalled the engine nervously when leaving the dealer, haha)

Also, after waiting a whole year for the car, our expectations were at their peak (lol), but the Boxster far exceeded those expectations with its amazing performance. The excitement on my husband’s face at that moment was just… priceless (laughs).

And at that moment, I realized:

For my husband, Porsche is not just a “car,” but “his life itself.”

At the same time, I thought, “Porsche can enrich a person’s life so much. I don’t know all the details, but Porsche seems like an incredible car.” That’s when I started getting interested in Porsche myself, and buying one became a goal for me too. (I want a bright red Targa, or maybe a Carrera 4… my preferences change daily, haha)

Please, Please…

Running a company is never easy, and managing a brand like Porsche, with its history and tradition, is no small feat.

But precisely because Porsche is not a car for everyone, it can be a life goal for many people. It’s worth owning, and the emotional experience of owning one can enrich a person’s life.

I sincerely hope that Porsche will continue to be Porsche, now and forever.