Honest question from a non car/Porsche enthusiast, why is this interesting and not Just Another Car -- and a (nice but) unremarkable, incredibly expensive one at that?
Regular cars are like regular rubber dome Logitech keyboards, EVs are like smartphone on-screen keyboards. Does a mechanical keyboard actually allow better typing than those keyboards? Probably yes, but very marginally to the point where it really doesn't matter.
But why do people get mechanical keyboards anyway often at 4x+ the cost? The mechanical switches have better tactile feedback. The materials of the keycaps and body are often better. There's significantly more customization and personalization options available.
That's sorta the same way with Porsche. You could get a mass market Corvette or Tesla that performs just as well for track times or transport for cheaper, but the Porsche will have better feedback (steering, pedals, shifter, chassis) and better customization options.
The Sport Classic would be like a limited edition collectable mechanical keyboard. Pretty pointless for someone who just needs a keyboard, but if you collect keyboards, it'd be a very special keyboard that very few others would have. Like a typewriter with usb-c.
Let me go even simpler. There's still a market for expensive mechanical watches that only tell the time, yet cost more than the most expensive smart watches, and are less acurate than cheap Casios. In short, some people just appreciate beautiful mechanical cool shit and are willing to pay through the nose for it, regardless of specs and benchmarks.
And the mechanical watches will still be repairable and usable one hundred years from now:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BCO1lNSw-E
G-Shocks will never need to be repaired :) Just swap the battery and you're good. And if you do damage the case somehow, you can find replacements on e-bay and swap them yourself instead of paying a small fortune to a watch maker to recondition your mechanical watch.
From what I can tell, most people seem to choose a car based on its looks (even the truck drivers I interviewed when looking for a farm truck), and I don’t really respond that way, so I may not be typical. I imagine Porsches look a lot better, but that just doesn’t mean much to me.
But now I own a Tesla Model Y. This is the "Mom's SUV" of Teslas, and it is in every way a better car than a 911, including being faster and more fun to drive.
For $275,000 you could buy three Model S Teslas. And of course the Model S is much faster than the Model Y.
Porsche's time of overpriced bespoke ICE cars is past.
I'm kinda/sorta working on my wife to convince her that we should replace the Tesla with a Taycan. Still electric, but drives like a Porsche.
But yes, Porsches have a very distinct and wonderful Porsche feel to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdJYiRROeAc
If you don't have time for the full episode, jump to his drive of a modern 911: https://youtu.be/rdJYiRROeAc?t=428
Porsche is really good at marketing over the past 20+ years producing limited editions of car driving up the value. The sport model here is just that with dealers adding $100k to $200k additional markup fees because the numbers produced are so low, more demand than supply. The 911 is a great car to drive, fairly reliable as a daily driver and very popular with c-level buyers. On the track it's benchmark which many compare themselves so while this sport model is more than capable for 99%, the Porsche GT3 and GT3RS models are even more expensive with bigger performance upgrades. Porsche has zero problems selling these cars as fast as they can make them.
They're expanding supply, it's just not growing faster than demand is.
But yes, buying a Macan or Cayenne tends to move you up on the waitlist. Existing owners do get prioritized.