Porsche vows to combat speculators

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume has proposed a subscription service for the car-maker's most sought-after models to rid the brand of speculators cashing in on high demand.

Back in 2017, speculators were advertising their 911 Rs on carsales.com.au for up to three times the new car sales price, with some owners netting a reported $800,000 payday after a single month's ownership.

Speaking to

“Our interest is to sell cars for drivers, not dealers,” said Blume. “We put so much love into them, with the goal of people driving them not to put them in a garage.

“One thing we could do is look at leasing models to try to avoid this kind of dealing, so the car doesn’t get sold on for a period of time. It is one solution.”

In the past, car-makers like Porsche and Ferrari have tried to sell limited run vehicles to recognised collectors or enthusiasts who already own existing hypercars or special edition models in an attempt to prevent the practice. But the lure of earning a quick million dollars is too much even for the super-rich.

Ford even attempted to get owners of its recent GT supercar to sign a binding contract that forbids them for selling on their car for a fixed time period but even then, owners still went ahead and flipped their cars - seeing the Blue Oval enter into costly legal battles.

It's thought leasing or subscribing with an option to buy at the end of the time period will allow car-maker's like Porsche to also ascertain how many 'true' buyers there are for vehicles like the Porsche 911 R.

In the past BMW was caught out when producing the CSL version of its former E46 M3.

Faced with an unprecedented amount of deposits at the time, BMW unwittingly upped production to match demand. Only when the model was launched did it realise many of those who had ordered a car hoped to flip the M3 CSL at a profit.

The result? Prices crashed as speculators tried desperately to sell their car at a loss.