Porsche scraps 250 Carrera GT's for US market

[GIR]

Because the Carrera GT doesn't comply with the US safety regulations as of January 2006 Porsche has decided to scrap 250 of the 1500 lowering the total number to 1250.

396 Carrera GT's have already found a way to their owners in the US and the current owners are not complaining. Most of the US buyers buy a car like this as an invesment, less produced means more money. 1250 worldwide is still a huge number, other producers like MB and Ferrari only build 300 to 400 exclusive models to be sold worldwide.

The reason why the GT doesn't comply with the 2006 US safety regulations is because as of January 2006 every car sold has to have 2 stage airbags. According to Porsche it's not profitable to make such an adjustment on a exclusive model so they're scrapping the final models to be sold in the US.

[bleh]

Originally Posted by GIR The reason why the GT doesn't comply with the 2006 US safety regulations is because as of January 2006 every car sold has to have 2 stage airbags. According to Porsche it's not profitable to make such an adjustment on a exclusive model so they're scrapping the final models to be sold in the US.

thats ghey. the states are really rediculous sometimes....all the time. what the crap is a 2 stage airbag???

[GIR]

Originally Posted by bleh thats ghey. the states are really rediculous sometimes....all the time. what the crap is a 2 stage airbag???

A 2 stage airbag is an airbag which has 2 pyro canisters connected to 1 airbag. This way depending on the severity of the accident and the circumstances involved the airbag can be inflated accordingly. Either to half strength or to full strength in 2 stages. This reduced airbag induced injuries.

[bleh]

understood. making that mandatory is whacked though.

[LateNightCable]

No big deal. 1,250 worldwide is still a mess load as far as $400k+ exotic cars go, you'd never have trouble finding one for sale probably.

People who are happy about the production cut just because they want the prices on their precious investment to stay high are a bunch of trailer queen hauling dorks though. With still over 1,000 I don't see the Carrera GT as being that great of an investment really, relatively speaking of course.

[taunus]

Nice story...

They scrab the production, because they couldn't sell more GT. There is no market. Mercedes has the same problems with the SLR.

[LateNightCable]

Originally Posted by taunus They scrab the production, because they couldn't sell more GT. There is no market. Mercedes has the same problems with the SLR.

The over zealous exotic car market has come to bite itself in the ass. You know, there is something kind of comforting about that, like maybe there is still some sanity left in the world. And it certainly doesn't bode well for the Veyron by any means.

[bgjestvang]

The same thing happened to Porsche's previous supercar, the 959. In 1987 Porsche refused to submit 4 US spec. 959s for crash testing. Therefore none of the 30 cars designated for the US market were permitted into the US. Most of these cars were scrapped, some were returned to Europe for owners who wanted to use them outside the US. But this was a truly limited production model under the then FIA Group B homologation rules, where 200 street cars were built. By the way, from only 2850 cc and 450 bhp that car had performance to match the Carrera GT, with only a 10 mph lower top speed (197 mph) and 0-60 mph in 3,7 seconds. But they didn't have to worry about airbags back then.

Surely if there was a bigger market for the Carrera GT in the US, Porsche would have modified the airbag system. If you assume Porsche's profit per car to be 10-15% of selling price they could go a long way to fix it if they had buyers. If it cost $25,000 per car to fix and they had buyers waiting they would do it. Still it is sad if they actually do scrap them.