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October 12, 2022 - A Local Visit

As the fall of 2022 progressed, and as the flow of information - any information - from Porsche Centre London dwindled down to exactly nothing, we endlessly speculated about what was going on. In conjunction with all of our callouts and probes on the forum, we were building a very good picture of the state of orders, the flow of allocations, times of delivery - across the Porsche-o-verse. But the exact mechanism of how dealers gave out allocations, that was still shrouded in mystery. Our naive expectation of a cut-and-dried waiting list based on order time had long been forgotten. We read stories about "ADMs" (Additional Dealer Markups) in the states, and about preference given to those with particular builds (i.e. generally more expensive builds). Several online forum members at various points simply gave up - they had been waiting to a point beyond their tolerance and they just exited the waiting game. We dutifully drew a strike-out corresponding to the row in our spreadsheet for such members.

Anyway, a part of our conversations involved the thought that, now armed with a much more mature sense of the allocation game, that we would go back to our local dealership - Mark Motors Ottawa - and talk to them (specifically, the sales manager) frankly about our experiences, our situation, and just ... see what he would say. We'd be able to talk much more confidently about a whole range of topics - including the much-contested "cost of Euro Delivery" that had kind of driven us away from Mark Motors in the first place.

Mark Motors Porsche, in Ottawa Canada (new location)

And so, on October 12, 2022, we popped into Mark Motors and are granted an in-office, sit-down visit with sales manager Paul Renaud. For the first few minutes, he seemed to eye us slightly sideways and didn't say much. Perhaps he wondered why a couple of guys who had orders in at a far-away dealership would be talking with him. We explained our story, shared the pitch video and the idea of the media initiative, expressed our hopes and frustrations, and our understandings (to-date) of the allocation process. Paul seemed to relax and open up as our talk progressed.

After we ran out of things to explain, Paul started to give his thoughts on the matter. He expressed a bit of regret for our long wait, but also said (unsurprisingly, because frankly, it was true) that the flow of models - especially sports car models - was very slow everywhere. But he also pretty openly confirmed that, yeah, having a better build will get you a more favorable consideration when the decisions are made when an allocation arrives. It was yet another confirmation that being on "a list" is only a starting point, and it doesn't really guarantee anything. A combination of factors: scarcity level of cars, your set of options, your previous sales history at that dealership, your potential for future sales - it all counted. So when Christina told us we were "number 1" back in November of 2021, what had that really meant? Of course, there was nothing stopping a dealer from strictly honoring a list by order date, and maybe before the big sale to AutoCanada, that was how Porsche Centre London operated their lists. But based on their evasiveness and silence, we speculated the worst: that that was not how there were doing things today.

Paul was even so kind as review his dealership's order lists for Boxster and Cayman GTSes and reported that they weren't super long - four or five long for each (I don't remember exactly). He also compared the order value of the entries and compared them to our orders. He did an interesting thing, where he mused about certain options and how he would position us on the lists depending on whether or not we had those options. One thing struck me in particular: I don't recall the particular words, but it was about the PTS (Paint to Sample) option, and how - if we had a PTS color in our builds, that would rank us quite highly - maybe even near or at the top - with his dealership.

That exchange convinced us pretty thoroughly: a particularly attractive build might just get you the next allocation for that particular model, and a bare-bones stripper build probably kept you near or at the bottom - unless there was a surplus of cars. And PTS especially seemed attractive to dealerships. We suspected that it was likely due to the fact that PTS is probably an extremely high-margin option. After all, it is still just a color of paint, even though there may be some extra expense tied to mixing and applying a custom color.

We came away from our Mark Motors visit fairly happy with how it had gone. Paul even promised to keep us in the loop on any allocation developments, and felt he could probably share something in the coming weeks. Very nice.
Mid-October 2022 - Feeling Blue

Our conversation with Mark Motors had us re-thinking our orders. We had no sense of how close we were to our allocations and with complete radio silence from Porsche Centre London, we were anxious. And the comments about the "value" of having the PTS (Paint to Sample) option to dealerships, well, it fed naturally into that. Might we consider re-jigging our builds to take a few things out, add a PTS color, and then approach Porsche Centre London? Porsche Centre London (despite promises from Steve and Tim to clarify the process for us, which never came) had never really been clear or transparent about their allocation granting process. Actually, I take that back. Christina was quite clear about our position shortly after we placed our orders, then one other time in the summer of 2021, and then a final time in the late fall of 2021 when she clearly said we were "number 1" in each GTS line. But since the start of 2022, everything went from clear to very muddy. Would adding PTS result in them clearing things up? maybe telling us definitively that the next allocations would indeed be ours?
PTS Blues
Porsche's paint options generally are structured thusly: there's a basic set of colors that are "$0-cost". Typically something like a white, black and a few others (like in the case of the 718, Guards Red and Signal Yellow). Then there's a first tier of (roughly six) extra-cost colors, which for the 718 is priced at about $700. Then there's a premium-tier (again, usually around six) set of colors, priced at around $3000. Which colors are in what tier seems a bit arbitrary, and usually changes somewhat from model year to model year. Above the premium-tier of colors is what is called "PTS", or "Paint To Sample". For the 2023 model year, this was a $13,000 option for the 718 model line. And while the name implies that you supply a "sample", really that's not how it is. It is essentially just a much, much, much broader tier of color choices, drawn from Porsche's entire history of paint colors. Generally there are about one hundred and fifty different colors to choose from. Of which there must have been at least thirty or forty different blues. Above PTS is "PTS-plus" - a frighteningly expense top-tier option which is really the true PTS: You essentially give Porsche the RGB value, tone, and lustre of your desired finish and they get back to you on whether or not they can paint your car that way.

So anyway, we were playing about in the "regular" PTS color tier now. A whole universe of blues had suddenly opened up to us - which was, honestly, kind of exciting. A really nice blue would be something quite special.
Blue Comparison Grid
We lived and breathed a world of blue for many hours over about two days. We scanned through the entire set of Porsche Paint To Sample blues, quickly discarding anything too light or too close to black. We also carefully examined each color and discarded any that had even the slightest tint of purple in it. We absolutely did not want any purple in our blue (which was the main reason why we discarded the possibility of going with Gentian Blue early on in our journey). And then we carefully proceeded, step-by-step, through the colors that remained. From this process, we arrived at two, maybe three colors that Luke and I both agreed were superb choices that we would be happy to host on the body of our GTSes.

In the end, we distilled our choices down to two colors: Oslo Blue, a lighter shade, and Manaus Blue, darker. Both are non-metallic and have not a hint of purple in them. They are both gorgeous colors. Luke definitely had a preference for Manaus.
Oslo Blue Boxster GTS
Manaus Blue 911 GT3
The other aspect of our exercise was what can best be described as "slash-and-blue", where we cut various options from our current builds and then added the PTS option, seeing how close we could get to our current build prices and still maintain a core subset of options from our original builds. In the end, we realize that getting a PTS color plus our set of "must-have" other options would result in builds that were about ten thousand dollars more expensive. Not cheap. But also, we thought, probably manageable.

As mentioned above, we carried on with this blue obsession for about two days. And then we took a step back. As Luke noted at one point, "It's crazy making. Must stop.". And so we took a step back. Yes, adding a PTS color would likely make our builds a lot more attractive to a dealer, and add some significant profit to our sales. But 9, 10, 11 thousand extra dollars ... it was a lot for what was just a different color. So we thought about other alternatives. And very quickly, we returned to the idea of Carmine Red, which we had been toying with off an on for ... well, for the last six months or so. Originally Luke hadn't been that keen on Carmine, and preferred our standard, no-cost Guards Red. But more recently he had grown more fond of the color. We began to think, maybe keep our full existing option set and just add Carmine Red. That would be sort of like a half-way to PTS sort of build (in terms of attractiveness to the dealer). This snippet of conversation from the evening of October 22 more or less captures the moment when we solidified this line of thought:
Luke Ward, Oct 22, 2022, 10:29PM
Hoo boy there are some pretty gorgeous carmine red videos out there.

Andrew Lavigne, Oct 22, 2022, 11:01PM
maybe it might prove to be a good intermediate choice

Luke Ward, Oct 22, 2022, 11:02PM
Yep. I think I'd be happy with it.

Andrew Lavigne, Oct 22, 2022, 11:05PM
Yeah, it's not bad. would you go with the black calipers?

Luke Ward, Oct 22, 2022, 11:06PM
I feel like I would but not sure

Andrew Lavigne, Oct 22, 2022, 11:06PM
well, carmine red + black calipers are both high margin options and would be just under $4k. It's a third of the way to PTS.

Luke Ward, Oct 22, 2022, 11:06PM
Seems like a decent progression for us to have in our pocket

Andrew Lavigne, Oct 22, 2022, 11:10PM
I think we'll have a lot in our pocket to work with:
our initial order increment [from back in May]
this middle ground color [i.e. Carmine Red]
and the "break-glass" PTS last resort.

Andrew Lavigne, Oct 22, 2022, 11:32PM
Another option would be to dangle plumping up the Carmine Red + black calipers with the 5-spokers. That's a total of about 6-7K right there.
halfway to PTS.

Luke Ward, Oct 22, 2022, 11:33PM
Yeah I like that spec

Tres gorgeous
Ok I'm sold on Carmine if need be.
Perhaps even starting to feel it a little more than Guards.
All of our talk about the values of builds and the subsequent re-examination of our color choices and a re-examination of our entire option mix, and, I guess, a growing willingness to engage in - let's face it - a sort of "pay-to-play" mentality, all of that had fully formed into a new stance.

Our new stance was a three-tiered one, that had our May-enhanced builds at the bottom; a mid-tier centered around upgrading to Carmine Red and a few more options; and a top-tier where we would take out some options but add back in a PTS color option.

To further fuel our anxiousness, there were also now rumors that some allocations in the mid-engined car space were coming to North American dealerships later on in the fall. Given that we were now paranoid about the allocation process, we absolutely wanted to socialize these new builds to them BEFORE those allocations came across their desks. And, as was now our preference, IN PERSON. Leave nothing to chance. Face-to-face. They see our facial expressions in 3-D, we see their facial expressions in 3-D. Notice any slight tell-tale or tick. And the same in reverse. We wanted to leave nothing to chance when it came to our precious dual GTS orders.

We started the process of sending out feeler emails to Porsche Centre London about another in-person dealer visit. And as before, initially the response seemed tepid. There were delays in the responses and lots of stuff about folks not being in the office, etc. We were in no mood for more pussy-footing around and we simply told the dealership that we were going to come down at the start of the following week, and whether we got any official meeting scheduled or not, and regardless of who specifically was going to be in the dealership (hopefully *someone* would be running the place). And whoever those employees were, well, they would just have to talk to us. Or we would just sit around and wait. Fortunately, the response to this last communication was quick: a short response from Steve, the General Manager himself. He says sure, come on down.

Coincidental with our planning to re-visit Porsche Centre London, Luke's good friend and band-mate Winston has been researching buying a used Porsche 718. And wouldn't you know it, he finds one that interests him, and it's on the lot at Porsche Centre London. This could prove to be useful, we thought. In addition to helping out a buddy, if this off-the-lot sale were to go through, it would represent a ticking of one of the KPI boxes that Porsche Centre London had stated they use in determining the "worth" of customers. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? We fired off a final email to Christina, stating that we'd also be examining this Cayman on Winston's behalf with the hope of a possible sale. She responded instantly: "Absolutely! I can certainly help with that Cayman S, she's a pretty one!". Hm ... a response like from the oldentimes!
October 25, 2022 - "Face"time Redux - Porsche Centre London Visit #2

2:30am. Our departure time from Ottawa. We were soon on the road, heading down highway 7 towards southwestern Ontario. We brought along a box of GTS Chronicles swag as well - cups, pens, cards.

We game-planned as we drove. Apart from smalltalk, how could we best refine our message down to its essence? And the answer, we concluded, was twofold: tell us what works best in terms of our build options, and ... please, please, please ... could we please get a chance to make a ... a counter-offer ... was probably the best word ... if one or two allocations for GTSes came in and if they were at all thinking of giving those allocations to buyers other than us. The idea was this: if in fact we were "number ones", but other buyers were hopping over us because their build or KPI index was better than ours, then we would at least have a chance to offer a new build, one that might keep our number one spots and therefore secure the allocations. We knew deep down inside that they probably couldn't promise to do that, as that would effectively grant us a kind of override power that they probably did not want to give customers. But it would send a message, we thought. We were serious, and we were willing to pay (up to a point). It felt yucky. And wrong. But with the general lack of transparency on progress and process from Porsche Centre London, we really did feel there was a chance that we'd never get our cars. As the saying goes ... "When information is scarce, imagination runs wild". So you couldn't really blame us for feeling this way.

We arrived. Obligatory greetings followed. The conversation was again friendly, the smiles seemed genuine. We made our case, we distributed our cool swag (which they genuinely seemed happy to receive), again name-dropped Dave and his connections, and then we sat down with Christina, in front of her Porsche admin app, and we discussed our builds. We asked her much more pointedly about what options "helped" the most. Her answers were surprisingly specific. Obviously more was generally better; but also, options designated "Exclusive Manufaktur" were counted as being "extra-better", somehow, and looked upon especially favorably. Generally these options were related to custom visual accents in some way or another, but not always. Fortunately, there were many items in the configurator that were Exclusive Manufaktur and not really all that expensive.

We had also decided to hold our tongues on mentioning the highest-tier - the PTS tier with the blue - of our three-tiers of builds with which we had mentally armed ourselves. We had decided that we considered that option a really last-last resort, hopefully only needed if an allocation(s) came in and we needed to hold an emergency intervention to prevent them from slipping away to someone else. Instead, today we put forward our mid-tier build - the one with Carmine Red, and then went over it with her to count out what options were Exclusive Manufaktur, seeing if we could quickly tweak them slightly to add a few more. After some back and forth, we came up with a couple of builds that had Carmine Red, a very decent batch of Exclusive Manufaktur options, mostly things we actually liked (as well as some that seemed a bit frivolous, like the upgraded fuel cap), and Christina said that they were actually pretty good builds, pretty solid. And they were sufficiently upgraded from our already upgraded May builds to appear solidly improved (at least that's how we perceived it).

We wanted to make sure our upgraded builds were properly entered (we had never gotten true email confirmation of our upgraded builds in May, and so we felt there was nothing better than seeing her enter the new builds with our own eyes). Once done, we turned our attention to the 2018 Silver Cayman S out in the parking lot. Friend Winston's potential new car!

We spent time carefully inspecting it from end-to-end. The paint was in great shape; it had PPF (paint protection film) over critical areas, and it seemed to be properly applied. The interior showed a bit of wear after 18,000 kilometres, but well within acceptability. The tires were fresh. It did seem to be in very good shape. We took lots of pictures and told Christina that we'd report back to Winston, and if he continued to be interested, she'd be hearing from him likely within days. We were trying hard to provide extra value as genuine, valuable, referring customers - even though we lived 600 kilometres away.
Winston's Potential Cayman S
18.3k on the clock
Verifying Tire Freshness
It so happened that, sitting right adjacent to Winston's [potential] Cayman was another 718. It was a Boxster GTS (a 2019 model), and more importantly for us, it was Carmine Red. This gave us a great opportunity to reassure ourselves that we were making the right choice in having settled upon it in our current builds. It really is quite beautiful - deep, pure, and slightly less showy than Guards Red.
Carmine Red GTS in Flesh
Carmine Red GTS in Flesh
Carmine Red GTS in Flesh
A comparison look at Guards Red
Comparing the Porsche Centre London Boxster GTS's Carmine Red to a Guards Red 718 GTS we saw elswhere. There's a noticeable difference!
October 25, 2022 - "Face"time Redux with Dave - Visit #2

With our duties at Porsche Centre London complete, we headed off - but not back towards Ottawa - but continued west along Highway 402 to Sarnia, then crossed into Michigan, and were soon at Dave's dealership - Porsche Motor City. We had decided to visit him again to thank him in person for being such a fantastic advocate for us and for the idea of The GTS Chronicles. And also because he's a super nice guy and it was nice to visit him. His stories and recollections were as amazing as ever, recounting his many visits and encounters with Alois Ruf and of being present at the time of the building of the first Porsche 959 supercars, and of Boris, the head of Porsche CXX. Amazing.

We had reserved a portion of our GTS Chronicles swag for Dave, and we presented him with a cup, pen, some cards, and also a few different types of our new decals. He said he'd send them around, and that decals were a great idea and that these were great.

Dave had seen some of the pictures we had taken of his Arctic Gray Cayman S back in the summer and was wondering if we could do some high-quality photos with a focus on his custom interior, to which we readily agreed. We went outside and conducted a photo session where we got some great closeups of his custom interior build.
Dave's very custom interior
Dave's Cayman: Custom Seat Centers
Natural Grain Leather
70th anniversary sticker
Friends of the Air-cooled Boxer Motor
Custom key chain
Intricate finished panel
We were grateful that we had been able to visit with Dave, even though it once again made for a very long 750-kilometre drive back to Ottawa. We arrived back very, very late - after what had become a whirlwind 1500km (1000+-mile) day trip. On the way back, we discussed how the visit with Porsche Centre London had gone down, and our take-aways from the various conversations there. We really felt like we had put our best foot forward with them.
Luke's Thoughts
[on the second Porsche Centre London visit...]
I walked away after the conversation [with Porsche Centre London] with a small spring in my step. We both did. In the ensuing 7+ hour drive back home, we analyzed the meeting at length and came away with the same impressions. We ARE starting to really mean something to our dealer. The GTS Chronicles is starting to become known outside of them. They told us as much. "Your guys' names came up..."

I shall remain, however, cautious and keep my unbridled excitement and joy well in check until the momentous allocation day comes. It's been a long road to this point, with too many downs, so I'm not gonna hit this high yet ...Patience. But it sure feels better than after our last visit.

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this moment, check out his blog post)
Late-October 2022 - A Good Impression?

Somewhat unexpectedly (I guess our standards had fallen), we started to get emails from Porsche Centre London, literally the very next day. In fact, the general manager emailed us at 5:38 a.m., literally only a few hours after we arrived back in Ottawa:

Thanks for the time to drive out and spend some time. We're hoping that we have some good news in the coming weeks/months for both of you. Your friend in Detroit sounds like quite the character and a serious Porsche player. Really cool.

Safe travels home guys. Thanks for the swag!

Luke summed our immediate thoughts very nicely: "Wow. I'm impressed. We've made an impression. I respond: Indeed. This is the most definitive thing Tim/Steve have ever said to us".

The early morning email was followed on by another nice note, this time from the sales manager, Tim:

Gents

Thanks again for stopping in and for the swag. Mr Renner sounds like an interesting guy for sure!

We are doing what we can to make the simultaneous EU Delivery experiences happen; this is on everyone's radar, and we have the right people involved at PCL to support us as required.

Of course, we will keep you updated with any developments. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience while the (long and arduous) process plays out.
These two messages went a long way to making us feel a whole ton better. We at least got the sense that they were actively trying, and frankly, we assumed that they wouldn't write such notes if they were planning to later tell us we were never going to get our cars. And later, there was another thing mentioned in passing by Christina, about how it was turning out to be an "ordeal" to get our double allocations with ED arranged - that implied that there was an active attempt to make this all happen for us, and also that it wasn't going quite as planned. But still, it was the effort that counted. And so, for all of these reasons - even amidst continued uncertainty - we were on a bit of a high as the month of October closed out. Maybe not as naively pumped as we were with last year's "number 1" announcement, but still pretty happy. I was even stoked enough to make another one of my allocation predictions: that we would receive them by November 15.

From: Luke Ward 10/26/2022, 11:50:20 PM
Yes, I too was pleased to read Tim's email particularly. I mean Steve is the GM, so sales is really Tim's purview.

I also think that Tim is the one who is a bit more towards our end of the Porsche car lovers spectrum.

"We appreciate your patience" too is one of the politest things they've actually emailed to us.

(unbelievable really)

From: Andrew Lavigne 10/26/2022, 11:52:36 PM
It is a rather unexpected turnaround

From: Luke Ward 10/26/2022, 11:52:44 PM
Lots of advocating and work by us.

and also some time for things to percolate. I mean, they didn't know us from anyone

From: Andrew Lavigne 10/26/2022, 11:53:59 PM
By the way, Dave says we should try and arrange our ED so that it allows us to maybe attend the Porsche 75th anniversary celebrations (and unsurprisingly at this point, he would try to get us in to)

From: Luke Ward 10/26/2022, 11:54:31 PM
That would be pretty damn cool

Another big lump got added to the top of the Porsche Centre London goodwill pile with the announcement by Luke's friend Winston that he would indeed be moving ahead with the purchase of the 2018 Cayman S from Porsche Centre London. He had reviewed the car's history, our pictures, and considered our impressions. He had already phoned Christina and was initiating the final steps. We got a nice thank-you email from Christina as the deal closed.

Hi Gentlemen,

I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful referral in regards to Winston. He has purchased the Cayman S all thanks to you guys. This means a lot to me that you entrust in me to assist people you know.

Thank you again!

During the last few days of October, we got a little more "official contact" from Porsche - in the form of the first copy of the complimentary Porsche brand magazine Christophorus. Like the "sorry it's taking so long" letter from back in June, it was nice to get a tidbit of something official directly to us from the company. To us that meant that they "saw" us, albeit in probably some mechanistic automatic way.

Our first issue of Christophorous magazine, of which a limited subscription is given as a gift to new buyers. I also got my first Porsche Club of America magazine on the same day, by coincidence.

And so that closes out what happened in October of 2022. I mean, we worked our butts off pretty hard in different ways, networking, promoting, connecting, and yes ... referring. And enduring some hardship and challenge, too. Would the allocation gods now smile upon us in November?
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