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October 29, 2020 - Negotiations Begin

After returning to Ottawa from our whirlwind Toronto visit, we spent much time crunching numbers and theorizing about what options we could get, subtracting possible discounts, and seeing what we could fit into our [as-then] desired budgets. We had done our rounds of out-of-town dealerships; we had gotten a sense of the game and roughly what might be possible.
The online configurator
It was now time to sit down and have a serious negotiating session with Mark Motors - our local Ottawa dealership - getting some firm numbers on paper, asking about the possibility of discounts. We sat with Julian at Mark Motors for a final time, showing him the data on the discount we were going to be able to get if we went with one of the Toronto dealerships. He went away for the classic "let me talk with my manager", and returned to say there was nothing further he could do for us. A small discount might be possible without European Delivery, and no discount at all with it. They claimed they had a back-charge from Porsche when the zero-dollar European Delivery option was selected, and as a sort of claw-back for that, a discount would not be available. We were kind of miffed about this, given that the option is listed as a zero-dollar option, and seemed not to actually BE zero-dollar if it meant a potential discount vanished with it in place.

We left without making a deal, now fully realizing that our thoughts about finagling a 3 or 4 or 5% discount in the current market were simply unrealistic. We agreed that Rick and Pffaff seemed like our best choice (and I can't recall if we made further outreaches to Tyler at Porsche North Toronto, but in any case that seemed to peter out).
November 13, 2020 - Orders Placed

We held further meetings (online) with Rick at Pfaff, had many more option and number-crunching sessions, and came up with a couple of builds that we submitted to Rick on November 12. And, on November 13, 2020, Luke and I put five thousand dollars each down on two Porsche 718 mid-engine sports cars.
Our Initial Orders!
My order was for a 2021 Porsche 718 Cayman S, with
  • color: Guards Red
  • six-speed manual transmission
  • navigation system
  • multifunction & heated steering wheel
  • fire extinguisher
  • luggage net (in the passenger footwell)
  • smoking package (not for smoking, but rather for the extra 12V power socket that comes with this option)
  • GT sport steering wheel (a steering wheel with a slightly smaller diameter)
  • "sport seats plus" (seats with better bolstering)
  • brushed aluminum interior package
  • adaptive suspension, lowered 20mm
  • sport chrono package (a set of track-oriented items, including dynamic engine mounts, clock/chronometer, drive mode selector, and integration with lap timing app)
  • torque vectoring with a mechanical limited slip differential
  • wheel caps with a colored Porsche crest
  • and last but not least, European Delivery from Lepzig, Germany
Luke's Thoughts
[thoughts upon ordering his Boxster...]
Wow. Can't believe it. I just bought a Porsche.

A Porsche.

I. Just. Bought. A. Brand. New. Porsche.

Wow.

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this moment, check out his blog post)

Luke's order was for a 2021 Porsche 718 Boxster, with
  • color: Guards Red
  • six-speed manual transmission
  • a black-colored convertible top
  • multifunction & heated steering wheel
  • fire extinguisher
  • luggage net (in the passenger footwell)
  • smoking package (not for smoking, but rather for the extra 12V power socket that comes with this option)
  • GT sport steering wheel (a steering wheel with a slightly smaller diameter)
  • "sport seats plus" (seats with better bolstering)
  • extended range (64L) fuel tank
  • brushed aluminum interior package
  • adaptive suspension, lowered 20mm
  • 19" Cayman S wheels in silver
  • aluminum pedals and footrest
  • tailpipes in silver
  • Porsche crest on headrests
  • gear lever in brushed aluminum
  • deletion of model designation
  • torque vectoring with a mechanical limited slip differential
  • and last but not least, European Delivery from Lepzig, Germany
Moment of order
For us, this was a significant and momentous day. Neither of us had really dreamed of getting a custom-configured, purpose-built sports car in this elevated tier. Porsches had seemed distant and mythical, and here we were, putting our own dollars down to own a couple of them ourselves. For those accustomed to buying in this space, we must have seemed almost quaint, childish. But to us, this was special. Our inking of a deal with Pfaff had us feeling pretty pumped, pretty excited. And based on my past experience with BMW's European Delivery in 2018 with my M2, we were optimistic for a late spring 2021 dual Euro Delivery adventure!
Car fanatics passing time
After submitting our orders with Rick at Pfaff Toronto, the back-and-forth of visits and video calls, negotiations and number-crunching, it all came to a stop. It was very much like the pause at the end of a book in a series of books. We had finished book one. And book two was scheduled for release .... well, who knew when ... Of course, we hoped that second book, let's call it "the book of delivery", would kick off with the receipt of two allocations for two cars. But that wouldn't realistically happen for at least a few months. Time to just quell our excitement and wait.

Apart from the normal things in life, we couldn't stop completely cold turkey. A scan through the chat history from the period post-order reveals a nearly non-stop back-and-forth of review posts, pictures, doctored pictures (basically me trying to create the apparently very rare combination of a Guards Red Boxster with silver 19" Cayman S wheels). Basically, endless excited back-and-forth chatting about all things 718, things Cayman, things Boxster, and things Porsche. Not unlike two kids, anxiously speculating about the gifts under the tree on the run-up to Christmas!
Hints of model upgrades
December 2020 - Model Creep

It happened innocently enough, at first. Very gradually. The constant back-and-forth about options and the endless visits to the configurator. We started talking about different models (as you recall, Luke had an order for a Boxster base and I had an order for a Cayman S). Luke mused about the Boxster T model. We occasionally glanced at the GTS model and even mentioned the words "GT4" and "Spyder" once in a while. And although it didn't amount to anything in the moment, this ongoing background conversation, of switching to higher models ... it was definitely finding itself a little nest somewhere deep in the back of our minds. And nicely ensconced there, it slowly kept itself churning, grinding away at possibilities. As a reader, I'm fairly sure you now guess that this devious creep will make its way to the forefront of our minds at some point. And all I'll say to you right now is ... you're probably not wrong!
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